THE OPEN PHILOSOPHY
AND THE OPEN SOCIETY
By the same Author:
DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE
READERS* GUIDE TO THE MARXIST CLASSICS
SCIENCE VERSUS IDEALISM
DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM, AN INTRODUCTION!
Vol. I. Materialism and the Dialectical Method
Vol. 2. Historical Materialism
Vol. 3. The Theory of Knowledge
MARXISM AND THE LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY
With J. D. Bernal,
SCIENCE FOR PEACE AND SOCIALISM
THE OPEN PHILOSOPHY
AND THE OPEN SOCIETY
a Reply to Dr. Karl Popper’s Refutations of Marxism
By MAURICE CORNFORTH
INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK
Copyright © Maurice Cornforth 1968
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 68-27395
Printed in the United States of America
FOREWORD
The object of this book is to discuss fundamental ideas of Marxist
philosophy and their implications for social theory and socialist policy.
My premise is to accept Marxism as essentially a scientific outlook
which seeks to work out and test ideas and policies, in all spheres, in
accordance with the canons of rational scientific discussion and in no
other way.
I have chosen the method of constructing this book as a reasoned
reply to criticisms of Marxism. And of all the critics, I have picked on
a single one, Dr. Karl Popper, as the one to answer. I have done this
because Dr. Popper's whole case against Marxism rests on his con-
tention that it is nothing but a system of dogmas, so that his arguments
against Marxism provide a ready-made and accommodating peg on
which to hang the argument that Marxism is, on the contrary, a
rational scientific discipline.
There is the more reason for a Marxist to tackle the case put against
Marxism by Dr. Popper because not only is he perhaps the most
eminent of our contemporary critics, and not only does he present
his case with great ability and force, but because, so far as I can judge,
the points he makes against Marxism include practically all the main
points against it which carry most weight in contemporary debate.
Of course, some of his arguments (for example, those he directs against
Marx’s Capital , or again, against the theory and practice of socialist
economic planning) are borrowed from arguments originally put
forward in greater detail by other critics. However, I have preferred
to stick throughout to tackling the case as put by Dr. Popper rather
than encumber the discussion with references to the writings of others
who have put the same case before or since. Dr. Popper’s arguments
against Marxism are extremely comprehensive, and it is high time
someone tried to answer him in detail.
Dr. Popper himself occupies an unchallengeable position in modem
letters as an exponent of principles of scientific method. His contribu-
tions in this sphere, first in his famous book Logik der Forschung
(published in English under the title Logic of Scientific Discovery) and
then in numerous articles in English and American journals, have had
and continue to have a great and beneficial influence on modern
thought. I would like to emphasise that I do not seek to attack or refute
all that Dr. Popper has to say about science or about society. On the
contrary, I accept and agree with a good deal of it. This book is not a
6
THE OPEN PHILOSOPHY AND THE OPEN SOCIETY
polemic against Dr. Popper, but an answer to his polemic against
Marxism. I am seeking only to answer his charges and (as the sequel
will show, this is often the right word) smears against Marxism, so as
to make as clear as I can what Marxism really stands for, and to show
that a rational and scientific approach to social problems (which
Dr. Popper professes to demand) lends support to Marxism.
Dr. Popper has popularised in sociology and politics the use of the
word “open”. In the title of this book, and in the discussions it contains,
I have ventured to borrow it from him. A society is “open” when
there is nothing to stop individuals, if they choose, from developing
their abilities and personalities to the fullest extent, and when social
institutions are so ordered that they can be changed and developed, by
decision of the members of society, in any way that will assist indi-
viduals to live more fully and more freely. On the other hand, it is
“closed” when the members of society are bound by rules and regula-
tions, conventions and prejudices, strictly enforced, which restrict
their choices and impose on them a pattern of life rigidly limited by
institutions which may not be changed.
The open society and progress towards the open society demand
(so Dr. Popper declares, and I agree with him) an open way of think-
ing, characterised by rationality as opposed to blind belief in dogmas.
For the open society we need an outlook which rejects dogmas and
judges things only on the basis of evidence, always ready to think
again when experience falsifies earlier conclusions. This I have ventured
to call an “open philosophy”.
Dr. Popper’s objection to Marxism is that he imagines it to be a
closed philosophy, a system of dogmas, what he calls “a reinforced
dogmatism”. And inevitably, so he maintains, the Marxist dogmas
enjoin a corresponding closed attitude in social life — the imposition on
society of rules, regulations, tyrannies of custom, enforced by political
tyranny, which effectively close for individuals, and for society as a
whole, all the avenues of free development.
But, one may ask, is a society really “open” when social production
is tied to ensuring the accumulation of capital from surplus value, and
the enjoyment of benefits and privileges by some depends on exploiting
the labour of others? And can one’s mind be really “open” so long as
one is unable to see that such is the case with contemporary capitalist
society, or to see the possibilities of advance which could be opened
up for mankind if only the exploitation of man by man were done
away with? So far from Marxism being a system of dogmas to close
FOREWORD
7
our minds and discourage the unfettered exercise of reason to work
out how best to promote freedom and the brotherhood of men, it
systematises a way of thinking to open our minds to the appreciation
of things as they are and the practical possibilities of changing them
for the better.
The open way of thinking is the way of thinking which bases itself
on demonstrable rules for finding out how things are, and which
strives to appreciate, therefore, the actual conditions of our material
existence and the necessary conditions for changing them — which
therefore closes the mind to misrepresentations and dogmas, and opens
the mind to the real possibilities of human life. That is why I have
called the philosophy of Marxism “the open philosophy” and the
communist society towards which Marxism directs our sights “the
open society”.
A good deal of this book is controversial — not only because I engage
in a controversy with opponents of Marxism but because there is
controversy within Marxism itself. Inevitably, to answer the objections
of opponents, especially the kind of objections Dr. Popper makes
about Marxism being a dogma and the policies it advocates policies
of dictatorship and tyranny, involves discussions which are contro-
versial as among friends. In this connection I cannot but conclude this
Foreword by acknowledging a particular debt of gratitude to R. Palme
Dutt, who read through most of this book in the form in which I first
drafted it. I alone am responsible for the point of view I express and
for such unclarities and fallacies as may be found in it. But by his
critical observations he helped me on several points to make it more
clear and, I hope, more cogent than it would otherwise have been.
London, October 1967
M. C.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2010
http://www.archive.org/details/openphilosophyopOOcorn
NOTE
Dr. Popper's anti-Marxist writings are contained in three of his books,
from which I have quoted extensively. For this purpose I have adopted
the following abbreviations in references to them:
The Open Society and its Enemies , Vol. i i-OS
Vol. 2 2-OS
The Poverty of Historicism PH
Conjectures and Refutations CR
Page references refer to the fourth (revised) paperback edition of
The Open Society and its Enemies, 1962; to the paperback edition of
The Poverty of Historicism, 1961; and to the original edition of
Conjectures and Refutations, 19 63.
.
CONTENTS
PART ONE: TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
Chapter i: THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF page 17
MARXISM
1. Marxism in Wonderland 17
2. Is Marxism Falsifiable? 18
3. Fundamentals of Marxist Social Theory 23
4. Does Marxism Allow Logical Contradictions? 31
5. Dialectical Materialism and Scientific Method 36
Chapter 2: THE MATERIALIST APPROACH 42
1. Materialism versus Idealism 42
2. The Case against Idealism 47
3. The Case for Materialism 51
Chapter 3: THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS 60
1. Dialectics versus Metaphysics 60
2. Materialist Dialectics 67
3. The Concrete Analysis of Concrete Conditions 73
4. The Dialectical Materialist Theory of Knowledge 8 1
5. Reinforced Dogmatism Reinforced 88
Chapter 4: THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS 97
1. The Science of Interconnections 97
2. The Unity of Opposites 101
3. The Test of Dialectical Materialism in
4. The Philosophy of Identity 12 1
PART TWO: PREMISES FOR POLITICS
Chapter i: HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL 129
PREDICTION
1. The Dogmatism of Historicism 129
2. Men Make their own History 133
3. Historical Prediction 137
4. Prediction, Probability and Intent 143
5. Necessity and Inevitability 15 1
6. Science and Utopia 159
12
THE OPEN PHILOSOPHY AND THE OPEN SOCIETY
Chapter 2: SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS 164
1. Problems of Social Science 164
2. Social Science and Politics 172
3. Conduct and Aims of Marxist Political Parties 178
Chapter 3: THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM 188
1. Has Capitalism Disappeared? 188
2. The Labour Theory of Value 192
3. Surplus Value and Exploitation of Wage-Labour 198
4. The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation 204
Chapter 4: SOCIAL REVOLUTION AND SOCIAL 215
ENGINEERING
1. The Socialist Revolution 215
2. Social Engineering 222
3. Reform and Revolution 227
Chapter 5: THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL 232
POWER
1. Institutions 232
2. Institutions and Classes 239
3. Classes and Political Power 245
4. The Executive Power of the State 253
Chapter 6: THE BATTLE OF DEMOCRACY 258
1 . The Definition of Democracy 258
2. Public Control and Class Control 265
3. Political and Economic Power 271
4. Socialist Democracy 274
PART THREE: TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
Chapter i: EQUALITY 281
1. Equality of Rights 281
2. Equality and the Abolition of Classes 287
Chapter 2: FREEDOM 292
1. Freedom and Restriction of Freedom 292
2. Freedom, Rights and Security 299
3. Freedom from Exploitation 304
4. Freedom and Necessity 312
5. The Means and Opportunities for Individual Freedom 319
CONTENTS I3
Chapter 3: THE OPEN SOCIETY 325
1. The Closed and the Open Society 325
2. The Way Into the Open Society 328
3. Responsibility, Individual and Collective 336
Chapter 4: COMMUNISM 343
1. The Rationality and Practicality of Communism 343
2. Social Implications of Modem Techniques 345
3. The Communist Programme 352
Chapter 5: THE TRANSITION TO COMMUNISM 360
1. Democratic Socialist Planning 360
2. From Socialism to Communism 368
Chapter 6: THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES 373
1. Communism and Anti-Communism 373
2. Against Violence, for Just Laws, for Individual Rights 375
3. The Rationalist Belief in Reason 383
Index: 391
PAST ONE
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
I
THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF MARXISM
I. MARXISM IN WONDERLAND
“You should say what you mean,” die March Hare told Alice at the
Mad Tea Party* “I do,” Alice replied. “At least, I mean what I say —
that's the same thing you know.” “Not the same thing a bit!” said the
Hatter.
The rather lengthy expositions and refutations of Marxism by
Dr. K. R. Popper place Marxists in the same predicament as the Hatter
placed Alice. Regardless of what we may say, he undertakes to say
what we mean — and then to show that it is both absurd and obnoxious.
Dr. Popper regards Marxism as a “reinforced dogmatism”. To deal
with it, he has himself devised a method of reinforced refutation. He
says what Marxism means, and shows how wrong it is. If any Marxist
objects, “But that is not what we Marxists say!” he replies, “It is
what Marxism means.” How can one answer such a refutation?
As Dr. Popper says in his preface to the second edition of The Open
Society and its Enemies , “my criticism was devastating”.
His exposition, explanation and refutation of Marxism is based on
the assumption that Marxism is essentially unscientific. How unscientific
it is he shows in The Open Society and its Enemies , where he expounds
and exposes first Plato and then Hegel, and then warns the reader —
Marxism is like them ! After such an introduction the reader’s prejudices
are thoroughly aroused, and he is well prepared to assist at the final
exposure and dissolution of Marxist dogmas.
What Marx did, however, was not to follow blindly in the footsteps
of Plato and Hegel, but to work out the foundations of the scientific
theory of man and society. That is what he said he tried to do, and
that is what he did. Marxism is scientific. Marx’s achievement was to
apply the standard methods of science to the study of society and the
solution of social problems. By so doing he performed a signal service
for the working-class movement, for his scientific theory (a) demon-
strated the character and consequences of the exploitation of labour in
modern society, (b) formulated a practical aim of ending that exploita-
tion and its consequences, and (c) supplied principles on which to
decide the practical policies necessary for realising the aim. Only the
i8
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
application and continued application of scientific method could
produce that kind of practical understanding and purpose of which
Marx and Marxists consider the working-class movement to stand in
need.
Marxism stands or falls entirely by whether it can or cannot justify
its scientific claims. But if it is, as is claimed, scientific, then it must be
allowed to share the generally recognised character of scientific
theories and views — namely, that it stakes no claim to finality or
completeness but keeps on adding to, modifying, reformulating and
rearranging its generalisations and recommendations as new experiences
and new problems are presented. A Marxist is, presumably, a follower
of Marx; and Marxism is the continuation of Marx’s work in developing
the scientific theory of the working-class movement and of socialism.
Yet when Marxists try to press forward the scientific development of
Marxism — and that includes not only expansion and elaboration but
correction — our critics tell us: Stop ! Marxism is unscientific and is not
allowed to develop like that.
Dr. Popper has himself written a good deal about scientific method,
notably in his book The Logic of Scientific Discovery and in the papers
collected in the volume Conjectures and Refutations . His contributions
to the subject are important and enlightening; and if I shall venture
to suggest that he has not said the last word (and he himself, I suppose,
would hardly claim that) it is not intended to belittle in the least the
value, importance and originality of what he has said. While answering
his refutations of Marxism I am well aware of how much we stand
in his debt. We are indebted to him in two ways. First, the points
he has made about “the logic of scientific discovery” are of great
assistance in formulating and explaining the actual scientific procedures
of Marxism. Second, his efforts to say what we mean are of great
assistance at least in making clear what we do not mean. So far as
we are concerned, we say what we mean and also (which Dr. Popper,
like the March Hare and the Mad Hatter, seems to find it hard to
appreciate) we mean what we say. We say that Marxism is based on
scientific procedures and can only continue on that basis. And we
mean it !
2. IS MARXISM FALSIFIABLE?
In his writings on scientific method Dr. Popper dealt with the question
of the criterion of demarcation between scientific theories, on the one
THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF MARXISM
19
hand, and non-scientific (pseudo-scientific or metaphysical) theories
on the other. It is generally agreed that a theory is scientific only if it
is capable of being tested by experience. He pointed out that to be y
capable of being tested is to be capable of being falsified. Thus it is not
enough to be able to describe types of instances which would confirm
a theory; it is necessary to be able to describe what sort of instance
would falsify it. “The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its
falsiflability ,, (CR. 37).
This point, a valid and important one, can be appreciated by
reflecting that to test anything it is essential to have a criterion of
failure . If there is only a vague idea of what is required to pass the test,
but no clear idea of what will bring failure, then it is possible to wangle
almost anything past the test and the test is as good as worthless. Or if
the test is so devised that anything will pass it, then it is no test at all.
This, Dr. Popper insists, goes for , scientific theories. “It is easy to
obtain confirmations for nearly every theory — if we look for confirma-
tions. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or refute
it. Testability is falsifiability” (CR. 36).
It is quite possible, as he and others have pointed out, for certain
ingenious theories to masquerade under the title of science when they
are in fact non-scientific — since they have been so constructed as to be
incapable of falsification. They are so constructed that whatever happens
fits in with the theory, and nothing , therefore, can falsify it.
It has been suggested that certain Freudian theories may be of this
sort. Freud said that every man wishes to kill his father and marry his
mother. If a man objects that he does not in fact wish to do such things,
Freud replies that of course he is not aware of so wishing because the
wish has been repressed. And in general, whatever a man consciously
wishes and does, it can always be made out to be linked with and not
incompatible with his unconscious oedipus-complex. But this puts the
Freudian theory outside the bounds of science. It is not a scientific but
a pseudo-scientific theory. It is a “reinforced dogmatism”, so built up
or reinforced as to be unfalsifiable or irrefutable.
These considerations suggested to Dr. Popper the happy idea of
contriving a final refutation of Marxism. People had long been trying
in vain to cite facts which would refute Marx’s social theories. No
wonder they did not succeed, for these theories are so devised as to be
irrefutable — and that refutes them !
If Marxist social theories were irrefutable in this sense, then they
would indeed be unscientific. But the fact that a theory has not been
20
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
falsified does not imply that it is unscientific because unfalsifiable. For
example, the law of the conservation of energy (the first law of
thermodynamics) is generally regarded as a genuine and well-tested
scientific law; but it has not been falsified. We can quite well say what
sort of things could happen if the law of the conservation of energy
did not hold; the point is, it does hold and they do not happen.
Similarly, we can quite well say what sort of things could happen if
the basic laws formulated by Marx as governing social development
did not hold; the point is, they do hold, and these things do not
happen. Unhappily for the refutation, Marxism is not irrefutable. Its
basic laws, like those of thermodynamics, correspond with how things
in fact go. What they forbid to happen never does happen.
Dr. Popper says, with truth, that “every ‘good’ scientific theory is
a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen” (CR. 36). Thus a
“good” or “genuine” scientific law, as distinct from a pseudo-scientific
one, can always be expressed in the form: “So and so cannot happen.”
For example, the first law of thermodynamics tells us “You cannot
build perpetual motion machines”, and the second law tells us “You
cannot build machines that are one hundred per cent efficient”. This
way of expressing laws brings out very well their practical value.
Thus the laws of thermodynamics instruct machine-technologists about
the limits of practical possibility within which they can operate (indeed,
it was in connection with the construction of steam engines that these
laws were first discovered). An engine cannot run without fuel, and
the task of the designer is to construct an engine in which the energy
of the fuel will be most efficiently converted into work. That allows
a very large but not unlimited range of possibility for the construction
of engines. But, of course, if someone did contrive an engine which
ran without fuel, or which was one hundred per cent efficient (it
would be a kind of fairy-tale engine), that would falsify the laws of
thermodynamics — and technologists would have to undertake some
new and very fundamental rethinking of their concepts. No one
expects this to happen, but it is imaginable (i.e. it can be described in
fairy tales). The laws of thermodynamics are thus falsifiable but not
falsified. That is, no doubt, why they are considered to be such
very “good” laws.
The fundamental laws which Marx formulated as governing social
development similarly “forbid certain things to happen”. They say
that there must always be a certain kind of correspondence between
forces of production and relations of production. This allows all
THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF MARXISM
21
manner of things to be done within the bounds of such correspondence,
but denies the possibility of going outside those bounds. From the
point of view, therefore, of social action — or what Dr. Popper calls
“social engineering” — it says what is possible and what is not possible.
For example, to use all the resources of modem technology for human
welfare is possible, but not without reconstituting property relations in
correspondence with the social character of production — it is not
possible to combine such use of resources with capitalist ownership
and capitalist profit. What Marxism “forbids to happen” can be
imagined as happening — indeed, in many democratic countries the
principal political parties make a parade of such imaginings at every
general election; but it never happens. If uninterrupted economic
development were to be combined with capitalist enterprise and
capitalist profit, then Marxs theory would be falsified— just as if a
perpetual motion machine were built the laws of thermodynamics
would be falsified.
The “social engineering” which treats Marxism as reinforced
dogmatism is thus just about on a level with ordinary engineering
which treats the laws of thermodynamics as reinforced dogmatism.
Dr. Popper maintains that the true scientist, always eager to test his
theories in every conceivable way, devotes his main energies to trying
to contrive falsifications. This view of scientific work overlooks the
fact that a scientific attitude also demands the guidance of practical
undertakings in accordance with scientific discovery. Dr. Popper
seems to think that a scientific attitude towards the social discoveries
claimed by Marx would enjoin continually trying all manner of means
to go against the laws which Marx formulated, in the hopes of
falsifying them. The scientifically-minded person must try to preserve
capitalism so as to see whether Marx’s laws cannot be falsified. The
Marxist who, accepting the laws, advises the abolition of capitalism,
is a mere dogmatist and lacks any conception of the ways of science.
This is like saying that chemists should practise alchemy, in the hopes
of falsifying the laws of chemistry; and that engineers should devote
all their ingenuity to constructing perpetual motion machines.
But Dr. Popper formulates his objection to Marxism also along the
following lines. Marxism forbids certain things to happen, but never-
theless some things which it forbids do happen. In that case the Marxists
admit to having made a mistake, but say that, all the same, “the
fundamentals” of the theory have not been falsified. That shows, says
Dr. Popper, that the theory is nothing but a reinforced dogmatism.
22
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
It has formulated its 4 ‘ fundamentals* * in such a way that they cannot
be falsified. It is not a scientific theory, which submits itself to tests,
but an unscientific theory which evades every test.
The Russian Revolution has been alleged, by Dr. Popper and
others, to provide a case in point. Marx certainly said at one time
that the socialist revolution would begin in the most advanced
industrial countries. He 4 'forbade* * it to begin anywhere else — but in
fact it began in Russia. But when this falsification of an earlier predic-
tion (or prohibition, for every prediction is a prohibition) took place,
Marxists simply said that certain specific features of social development
in particular countries had been underestimated; the revolution began
in Russia because “the chain breaks at its weakest link*’.
Does a candid examination of this example really support the
allegation that Marxism is reinforced dogmatism? On the contrary,
Marxism remains falsifiable. Marxists can, it is true, readily account for
the socialist revolution starting in Russia. But if it had started, say,
in the Far East or Central Africa, or if it had never started at all, that
could not have been accounted for, and really would have falsified
Marxism. But it did start, and started where Marxism permitted it to
start. In point of fact Marx himself, in his later correspondence, wrote
that his observations were leading him to the conclusion that revolution
was unlikely after all to start in the industrial countries. Things were
happening in these countries to postpone the revolution he had earlier
expected, but in Russia to accelerate it. His approach to questions
was the normal one of a scientific thinker who is continually ready to
revise former estimates in the light of new evidence, but does not find
it necessary to scrap the whole fundamental theory of his science every
time such a revision is indicated.
Similarly the fact that after the Second World War there was for
many years full employment in Britain, in contradiction to Marx’s
statements about capitalism always creating 4 ‘a reserve” of unemploy-
ment, does not lead British Marxists to conclude that the whole
Marxist theory of capitalism and socialism has been falsified, but only
that certain special conditions had temporarily come into existence in
Britain.
Scientists generally agree that if predictions made in the light of a
general theory are falsified, and it is then proposed to “save” the
theory by adding 4 ‘supplementary hypotheses”, the theory must none
the less be scrapped if the only evidence offered for the supplementary
hypotheses is that they save the theory. Thus, for example, the old
THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF MARXISM
23
Ptolemaic theory that the planets move in circular orbits round the
earth failed to accord with observations, but was “saved” by postu-
lating irregularities, or epicycles, in the motions of the planets.
However, because the only evidence offered for these epicycles was
that they saved the theory, scientists now generally agree that observa-
tion has falsified the Ptolemaic theory.
It has been suggested that this is how Marxism is “saved” wherever
what happens deviates from a prediction. But in fact the Marxist
procedure has never been to invent supplementary hypotheses. For
example, to account for full employment in Britain we do not invent
a supplementary hypothesis — a kind of economic epicycle. We simply
examine what has actually happened, which has by no means exceeded
the bounds of possibility allowed by the general theory of Marxism,
and find that it has led to consequences predictable and accountable
within the theory. And similarly with the Russian Revolution.
The rescue of Marxism in such cases is interestingly paralleled by
a second example from the theory of planetary motions. After the
Ptolemaic theory had been supplanted by Kepler's laws, certain
irregularities were observed in the motion of the planet Uranus which
did not accord with the predictions made by the laws. So it was
suggested that there was in fact another planet, whose existence had
previously passed unnoticed, the influence of which would account
for the irregularities. Sure enough, this other planet (now named
Neptune) was observed when telescopes were directed in the right
direction — so Kepler's laws were “saved”, since they did not “forbid”
there being another planet but allowed for its existence. It is just
the same with Marxism, when social “irregularities” (such as the
Russian Revolution or full employment in Britain) take place — we
look for and find the causes of these “irregularities”.
3. FUNDAMENTALS OF MARXIST SOCIAL THEORY
Is there really anything wrong with saying, as Marxists say, that the
“fundamentals” of Marxist social theory are not refuted even when
certain particular expectations of events are falsified? Is it really a
defect of a theory when its fundamentals are so framed that a rather
wide range of possible happenings can be fitted into it? If so, then
not only Marxism but a number of other theories too, generally
regarded as scientific, must be relegated into the category of pseudo-
science. Scientists are for ever being faced with failures of prediction,
24
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
which they manage nevertheless to fit into the framework of their
theories; and that is how the theories generally develop.
To deal with the question of whether Marxism is science or pseudo-
science it is advisable to begin by asking what the fundamental
propositions of Marxist social theory actually say, and how Marx
arrived at them.
Before Marx formulated these scientific propositions, social events
were generally accounted for in terms of people’s intentions and
motives, and the structure and institutions of society in terms of the
prevailing ideas. This way of accounting for social phenomena really
does suffer from the defect of being able to account for anything.
People always have intentions, and whatever may happen it can
always be accounted for by saying that certain people acted with
certain intentions — if what happens is what they intended, well and
good; if not, then that is because they made a miscalculation, or
because other people with other intentions interfered with them.
Moreover, because it is practically impossible ever to discover with
certainty what people’s intentions really were, it is always possible to
attribute to them intentions fitting in with what took place, and so
to account for what took place by the attributed intentions. Similarly,
whatever the structure and institutions of society, it can always be
said that they came to exist because certain people thought that was
the best way of arranging social affairs, or else because some people’s
good intentions were frustrated by other people. This type of theory
(described by Marx as “idealist”, because it makes intentions and
ideas the primary motive force in society) can therefore be judged
unscientific precisely on the criteria proposed by Dr. Popper for
distinguishing unscientific from scientific theories. Its obvious short-
coming is that it leaves one still asking — what accounts for people’s
different intentions and ideas, and for some being more successfully
realised than others?
Marx’s formulation of fundamental propositions for social science
disposed of such previously unscientific ways of interpreting and
accounting for events in very much the same way that, in other
branches of inquiry, previously unscientific theories were disposed of
when certain fundamental propositions for the respective sciences
were formulated. For example, the old type of physics, derived from
Aristotle, accounted for physical motion on the principle that every
body seeks its natural place and changes according to the potentialities
of change inherent in it. As Galileo, Newton and others effectively
THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF MARXISM
2 5
showed, such theories accounted for nothing because they could
account for anything. Again, the theory of the original creation of
biological species accounted for nothing because it could account for
anything — whatever forms of life were observed could be accounted
for by including them in the original plan of the Creator.
Dr. Popper has pointed out that scientific theories are not arrived
at by so-called “induction” from numerous observations but rather
by posing questions and answers to them — answers that can then be
observationally tested in all manner of ways. He did not, however,
conclude (as he could have done) that the establishment of funda-
mental theory, or guiding principles, for any field of inquiry has
always depended on someone asking the right questions. Yet the
genius of the great innovators in science has consisted in their formu-
lating the right questions : once that is done, the answers are generally
rather obvious. Marx's theory originates from his asking a question
about society.
What is the key question from which Marx’s social theory proceeds?
The theory is not understood unless the question is understood — and
this is why so many people (Dr. Popper included) fail to understand
it, and so say it means what it does not mean.
Faced with all the multitudinous phenomena of social life (both
contemporary and as recorded by history) and seeking to embrace
them all within a theory, Marx did not ask “What will account for
all these phenomena?” Indeed, a question of the form “What accounts
for all the phenomena?” is never the key question for establishing
fundamental scientific theory. The phenomena in detail are to be
accounted for by detailed investigations guided by scientific theory,
which is quite another thing from the theory laying down in advance
just what accounts for them all. So far from being a key question for
science, the question “What accounts for everything?” is the very
question which commonly leads to pseudo-science — something is
posited which can so readily account for anything that it accounts
for nothing. Marx is often alleged to have posed against the pseudo-
scientific theory that ideas account for everything the rival pseudo-
scientific theory that economic interest accounts for everything. This
he did not do, and he and Engels denied it frequently and emphatically.
The key question Marx asked was the simple and searching one:
What is the condition for social life of any kind to take place ? Once he
asked this question the answer was obvious. The condition for any
kind of social life is that people should associate together to produce
2 6
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
their material means of life. The proposition that to engage in any form
of social activity people must first associate to produce their means of sub-
sistence, was the fundamental proposition on which Marx based the
science of society.
Having arrived at this proposition, Marx was then able to formulate
the fundamental concepts in terms of which the social mode of production
may be defined. These are the concepts of forces of production and
relations of production. In order socially to produce their means of
subsistence men must fashion tools and implements and acquire the
skill and knowledge for their use — and these are their forces of pro-
duction. And in using those forces of production they must enter
into social relations of production. Men “produce only by co-operating
in a certain way and mutually exchanging their activities’’, wrote
Marx in Wage-Labour and Capital. “In order to produce they enter
into relations with one another, and only within these relations does
production take place.” The relations of production are therefore the
multiple relations between individual people as “they exchange their
activities and take part in the whole action of production”. They
include the property relations which people enter into in owning
means of production and in appropriating and distributing the pro-
ducts, and define the economic structure of society and the division
of society into classes.
Having thus concluded that the condition for social life is that men
should engage in a mode of production, consisting of their entering
into definite relations of production for the utilisation of definite
forces of production, Marx proceeded to frame a general hypothesis
about the way social life develops — it may be called the general law
of all social development. This said that people must always adapt their
relations of production to their forces of production , and work out ideas and
organise themselves in institutions to enable them to do so.
This theory (often known as “historical materialism”, and here
stated only in its barest and simplest terms) served Marx (as he put
it in the Preface to The Critique of Political Economy) “as a guiding
thread for my studies”. That is to say, in the study of any particular
phase of social development, past or present, he proceeded to consider
what the forces of production were, what the relations of production
were, and how people’s arguments about ideas and conduct of institu-
tions enabled them to adapt their relations of production to their
forces of production. This procedure served at one and the same time
to account for the principal currents of social activity and their inter-
THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF MARXISM
27
play, and to define and delimit the actual possibilities and possible
directions of social change.
Such study, evidently, has to be empirical, like any scientific study —
it is always necessary to ascertain the facts, they cannot be deduced
from general theory. The general theory, like any “good” scientific
theory, guides the inquirer by telling him what to look for ; it does not
tell him in advance exactly what he will find. And obviously, on the
one hand, it is possible for the inquirer to make all sorts of errors
(for example, to overlook certain things that are happening, or to
mistake one kind of happening for another) without such errors
falsifying the general theory. On the contrary, the reapplication of the
general theory will assist him to rectify such errors. And on the other
hand, the general theory is sufficiently general, and sufficiently
“flexible”, to allow a very wide margin of possible variations of
development to occur without its being thereby falsified. On the
contrary, in a given situation the theory permits many different
alternative things to happen and, whichever does happen, is still
capable of finding out how to account for it and to follow its
development.
The general guiding theory of Marxism is tested in its application
to inquiries about particular events or sequences of events. And so
far it has not been falsified but confirmed. As I pointed out before,
this does not make it unfalsifiable. Certain things would assuredly
falsify it, only they do not happen — for example, a Stone Age com-
munity managing its affairs by parliamentary government and con-
ducting controversies about the rights of man, or a successfully
managed capitalism.
The methodology by which Marx arrived at his theory of social
development is exactly the same as that employed by Darwin in
establishing the theory of evolution of species by natural selection.
Engels in fact remarked on this in his speech at Marx’s funeral, when
he said: “Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic
nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history.”
It is remarkable that Marx and Darwin both published their basic
conclusions within a few years of each other, each having worked
independently in applying the same scientific methodology in their
respective spheres of inquiry.
Darwin’s theory rests on the fundamental premise that every living
organism lives by adaptation to an environment from which it
assimilates its requirements of life. This, he realised, is the universal
28
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
condition for the existence of living species— just as Marx realised that
social production is the universal condition for the existence of human
societies. Marx’s point about the human species — that men live in
society by the social production of their means of life — was in fact a
special application to men of the more general proposition about all
living organisms propounded by Darwin. What distinguishes men
from other animals, Marx explained, is the way they obtain their
requirements by social production: from this comes the human
peculiarity of speech, and the whole social and intellectual life by
which men separate themselves from the rest of living nature. Human
evolution then becomes not biological but social. Men do not acquire
and satisfy new needs by any alteration of the organs of their bodies,
but by acquiring new forces of production; and they change their
social life and their own individual habits in so doing.
Having propounded his fundamental proposition, Darwin proceeded
to formulate the general hypothesis of natural selection. In exactly the
same way, having propounded his fundamental proposition, Marx
proceeded to formulate the general hypothesis about adapting relations
of production to forces of production. Darwin, in his work, collected
and sifted an enormous mass of data, demonstrating in detail how his
hypothesis worked out — and he was able to fit all manner of apparent
anomalies into the general theory. Marx in his work did the same. The
scientific methodology employed was identical; and if historical
materialism is to be rejected as pseudo-science, so must the theory of
the evolution of species by natural selection.
This account of the parallel in scientific methodology between the
evolutionary theories of Marx and Darwin does not, incidentally,
invalidate the criticisms that Marx himself made of certain supple-
mentary aspects of Darwin’s original theory. To the general hypothesis
of natural selection Darwin added a supplementary concept — which
he borrowed from Malthus — about “the struggle for existence” and
“the survival of the fittest”. Marx criticised these supplementary
formulations of Darwin. It is now pretty generally agreed that those
formulations were defective, and so the Darwinian theory does not
survive in the exact form which Darwin himself originally gave it.
But the “fundamental” Darwinian theory of evolution by natural
selection survives.
Marx’s theory, of course, lacks the “exactness” characteristic of
those sciences which deal with physical and chemical phenomena. For
the generalisations and laws stated in the theory are not formulated in
THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF MARXISM
29
quantitative terms. This is alleged to produce in Marx’s theory an
unscientific vagueness. Once again, if this objection makes Marx’s
theory unscientific, it makes Darwin’s theory equally unscientific. Yet
surely no one in his senses would expect all generalisations about social
and biological evolution to be given the quantitative form of the laws
of mechanics or thermodynamics.
It is worth noting, however, that despite these differences we may
discern in the “exact” sciences, too, the self-same procedure for
establishing fundamental theory as is exemplified in the social and
biological theories of Marx and Darwin. For example, in establishing
the fundamental theory of mechanics the idea was adopted that the
condition for the existence of any body in motion relative to other
bodies is that it has a certain motion of its own and is acted on by
external forces. Having once hit on this fundamental idea, there were
then formulated the fundamental concepts of mass, force, inertia,
energy, and so on, in terms of which the laws of mechanics were
formulated — corresponding to the fundamental (but in this case non-
quantitative) concepts of relations of production and forces of pro-
duction formulated by Marx.
The scrutiny of Marx’s fundamental ideas about society reveals,
then, their scientific character. Dr. Popper’s failure to grasp this fact
illustrates his failure, in his published work on scientific method, to
grasp more than one single aspect of scientific procedures. He says
that science proceeds by making “conjectures” which are “falsifiable”,
and then devising all manner of ways of trying to falsify them. So
far as it goes, that is true enough. But yet the body of scientific theory
consists of more than just a collection of falsifiable conjectures which
are variously revised or replaced by other conjectures as falsification
actually overtakes them. Every well-developed science rests on its
fundamental theory, and is guided by it in its inquiries. This is a
feature of science which Dr. Popper never examines — possibly because
he distrusts such expressions as “fundamental theory”, which he
thinks redolent of pseudo-scientific metaphysics.
This shortcoming is evidenced when, after saying that “every ‘good’
scientific theory . . . forbids certain things to happen”, he adds:
“The more a theory forbids, the better it is” (CR. 36).
In making this pronouncement about how to judge how “good” a
scientific theory is, Dr. Popper had, perhaps, in mind examples like
the zoological statement: “eagles do not catch flies”. This statement
is true, and well-authenticated — but its scientific value, as an item of
30
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
zoological science, is slight. It simply “forbids” eagles to catch flies,
and permits them to do anything else. But a “good” scientic account
of eagles must be much more exacting in what it forbids and permits
these birds to do. However, what undoubtedly applies to items of
scientific theory about particular phenomena, does not apply to those
very general theories and very general laws which, by virtue of their
great generality, serve as the fundamentals for all scientific theory
dealing with a whole class of phenomena (biological, physical, chemical,
social, and so on). For example, the first and second laws of thermo-
dynamics simply “forbid” energy not to be conserved and entropy
not to increase; they allow anything to happen within these pro-
hibitions. Again, the Darwinian theory simply forbids species or
varieties to survive for long unless adapted to their environments (a
very liberal prohibition); and similarly, the Marxist theory simply
forbids societies to develop without adapting relations of production
to forces of production. These laws and theories would not be “better”
if they forbade more. On the contrary, they would not be much good
if they forbade too much.
What Dr. Popper seems to have overlooked in his pronouncements
about prohibitions and falsifications is the work of abstraction and
generalisation in scientific theory. The task of “fundamental” theory
is to abstract the necessary or universal condition of existence of the
phenomena studied, and to put forward corresponding generalisations.
Such fundamental theory, very abstract and very general, does not,
should not and cannot satisfy Dr. Popper’s principle that “the more a
theory forbids the better it is”. It is, indeed, difficult to imagine why
on earth Dr. Popper should ever have enunciated such a principle —
except that it gives him a stick to beat Marxism with. But it is not a
“good” stick, and in wielding it Dr. Popper joins the very numerous
and very distinguished company of those who have allowed anti-
communism to cloud their judgment.
In short, in making out that Marx’s theory about society is rein-
forced dogmatism, Dr. Popper has totally neglected to consider
Marx’s actual methodology. Marx in fact laid the foundations of his
theory of society in just the same way as others have laid the founda-
tions of other sciences. And this is plainly evidenced in what Marx
said. As we shall see, having ignored Marx’s actual methodology, Dr.
Popper proceeds to explain that Marx’s theory really means all kinds
of pseudo-scientific things (summed up in such denigratory epithets
as “historicism” and “essentialism”) which, however, could not have
THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF MARXISM
31
been products of Marx’s scientific method, and which Marx did not say.
Instead of examining Marx’s scientific method, Dr. Popper deals
at some length with the “origins” of Marx’s theory in the philosophy
of Hegel. Hegel was a philosopher who accepted the idealist view of
human affairs, that ideas are what accounts for everything; but in
contrast to those who said, and continue to say, that there is no
accounting for ideas and that therefore there is no discernible “law
of development” in human history, Hegel did see a law of historical
development, namely the logical law of the working out of ideas.
Marx, it is true, was greatly impressed by Hegel’s conception of a
discoverable law of development — but not by Hegel’s account of
what this law of development was. He totally rejected Hegel’s idealism,
and sought instead to arrive at the formulation of a law of development
by the well-tried methods of empirical science. He called this “putting
Hegel on his feet”. The result was the theory of historical materialism.
Dr. Popper, on the other hand, concludes that because Marx
admired and was stimulated by Hegel, therefore his theory originated
from Hegel, and therefore it must be as foreign to science as Hegel’s
theory was. He concludes that the Marxist theory is essentially
unscientific on the grounds that it originated from Hegel. This kind of
exposition comes, incidentally, very strangely from one who h&s also
devoted much space to exposing the fallacy of deducing what a thing
is, its “essence”, by theorising about its “origins”.
4. DOES MARXISM ALLOW LOGICAL CONTRADICTIONS?
Dr. Popper further maintains that what makes Marxism into “a
reinforced dogmatism” is its use of “dialectics” — which he sees as
totally opposed to science. He does not object so much to Marx’s
“materialism” as to “dialectics”. “Although I should not describe
myself as a materialist, my criticism is not directed against materialism”,
he says. “The materialist element in this theory could be comparatively
easily reformulated in such a way that no serious objection to it could
be made” (CR. 331-2). But “thanks to dialectics . . . Marxism has
established itself as a dogmatism which is elastic enough, by using its
dialectic method, to evade any further attack. It has thus become what
I have called a reinforced dogmatism” (CR. 334).
True to his own method of reinforced refutation, Dr. Popper
proceeds to say what “dialectics” means — and makes it mean some-
thing remarkably stupid.
32
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
“Dialectics ... is a theory which maintains that something — more
especially human thought — develops in a way characterised by what
is called the dialectic triad: thesis, antithesis and synthesis” (CR. 313).
As against this, it is worth recalling what Lenin said about dialectics
in his very famous book What the Friends of the People are and how
they fight the Social-Democrats. “Anyone who reads the definition
and description of the dialectical method given by Engels will see
that the Hegelian triads are not even mentioned, and that it all amounts
to regarding social evolution as a natural-historical process of develop-
ment. . . . What Marx and Engels called the dialectical method is
nothing more nor less than the scientific method in sociology, which
consists in regarding society as a living organism in a constant state of
development, the study of which requires an objective analysis of the
relations of production which constitute the given social formation
and an investigation of its laws of functioning and development.”
Quite in accord with this, Lenin also said that “the most essential
thing in Marxism is the concrete analysis of concrete conditions”, and
that “genuine dialectics” consists of “a thorough detailed analysis of a
process”.
Dr. Popper has, of course, read Marx and Engels (though possibly
not Lenin). However, having read them, he concludes that they did
not mean what they said, so he has undertaken to say it for them.
Having foisted on to them the rather incoherent “theory” that “some-
thing, more especially human thought” always develops through
“thesis, antithesis and synthesis”, he proceeds to foist on them a logical
conclusion even more absurd than the alleged theory.
According to the “dialectical” theory of “triads”, the thesis and
antithesis are “contradictory”. Therefore, says Dr. Popper, dialecticians
“assert that contradictions cannot be avoided, since they occur every-
where in the world. Such an assertion”, he continues, “amounts to
an attack upon the so-called ‘law of contradiction (or, more fully,
upon the ‘law of the exclusion of contradictions’) of traditional logic,
a law which asserts that two contradictory statements can never be
true together, or that a statement consisting of the conjunction of
two contradictory statements must always be rejected as false on
purely logical grounds” (CR. 316). Hence, he concludes, dialectics
rests on the absurdity of asserting that logically self-contradictory
statements are true.
This is, indeed, an absurdity. But Marx was never responsible for
enunciating it — he never said anything of the kind. On the contrary,
THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF MARXISM
33
he frequently (like any other scientific inquirer) concluded that certain
generalisations were false because certain verified statements of fact
contradicted them ; and he would hardly have done that if he had
thought that the logical “law of the exclusion of contradictions”
could be dispensed with. If two logically contradictory statements
could both be true, then a generalisation could still be true even
though facts contradicted it. One could then say whatever one liked,
there could be no test of truth or falsehood, and, as Dr. Popper
correctly remarks, “one would have to give up any kind of scientific
activity: it would mean a complete breakdown of science” (CR. 317).
Dr. Popper’s foisting on to Marxism the absurd view that logical
contradictions are allowable in true statement depends on making a
play with the use of the word “contradiction” quite in the style of
the characters Alice met in Wonderland.
If, in describing a certain person, one says that “he is a mass of
contradictions”, no one but the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, or
Dr. Popper, would conclude that one means that a true statement of
his character is logically self-contradictory. Similarly, Marx wrote
about “the contradictions of capitalism”, indicating that in the
development of capitalism the combination of “socialised production”
with “private appropriation” produces certain strains and instabilities.
But to state that capitalism combines socialised production and private
appropriation, between which there exists a relationship of a type
which may, without misuse of language, be termed “contradictory”,
is not a logically self-contradictory or inconsistent statement, but a
perfectly consistent general factual statement, of the kind which may
be verified or falsified. There is not a sentence in the “concrete analysis
of concrete conditions” or “thorough detailed analysis of a process”,
undertaken by Marx, Engels, Lenin, or any responsible Marxist
practising the dialectical method, by which they sort out and display
the “contradictions” exemplified in conditions and processes, which
contains even a hint at a logical contradiction.
Having concluded that Marxism means to say that logical contradic-
tions are allowable, Dr. Popper triumphantly produces his final
demonstration that Marxism is “reinforced dogmatism”. “For if we
are prepared to put up with contradictions, pointing out contradic-
tions in our theories could no longer induce us to change them. In
other words, all criticism (which consists in pointing out contradic-
tions) would lose its force. Criticism would be answered by ‘And
why not?’ or perhaps even by an enthusiastic ‘There you are!’; that
34
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
is, by welcoming the contradictions which have been pointed out to
us” (CR. 317). So you cannot falsify Marxism, because Marxism
maintains that falsification or contradiction does not falsify. This
account of Marx’s “reinforced dogmatism” does not, of course, quite
accord with other accounts which Dr. Popper gives of how Marxism
evades falsification. But never mind that! His reinforced refutations
can never fail, because, whatever Marx or Marxists may say, he will
always find a way of saying what we mean which renders it utterly
absurd.
Outside of Wonderland, it is a commonplace that the Marxist
“dialectic” is concerned with understanding things “in their changes
and interconnections”, and formulating “laws” about how real
changes and interconnections go.
As Engels said in the introduction to Atiti-Duhring , it is a mistake
if “in considering individual things” one “loses sight of their inter-
connections”, or if “in contemplating their existence” one “forgets
their coming into being and passing away”. And if one makes such a
mistake, he continued, one ends by being involved in contradictions.
Thus “for everyday purposes we know, for example, and can say
with certainty whether an animal is alive or not; but when we look
more closely we find that this is often an extremely complex question
... it is impossible to determine the moment of death, for physiology
has established that death is not a sudden instantaneous event but a very
protracted process. In the same way every organic being is at each
moment the same and not the same; at each moment it is assimilating
matter drawn from without, and excreting other matter; at each
moment the cells of its body are dying and new ones are being formed;
in fact within a longer or shorter period the matter of its body is
completely renewed ... so that every organic being is at all times
itself and yet something other than itself”. Hence if you overlook
the way tilings come into being and cease to be, the way they dis-
integrate and are renewed, and the way they exist only in complex
interrelations with other things, and try to say of each tiling what
its state is at each moment regardless of its changes and relationships,
you will be led to make contradictory statements — “it is . . .” and
n » • ^ >>
it is not ....
What does this imply? It certainly does not imply that we should
be “prepared to put up with (logical) contradictions”. On the contrary,
the occurrence of logical contradictions is a sign that the categories
employed in describing things in abstraction from “their intercon-
THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF MARXISM
35
nections” and “coming into being and passing away” are inadequate
to the “concrete analysis of concrete conditions”. When, in accordance
with principles of dialectics, one substitutes for such abstract and
inadequate accounts of things the “thorough detailed analysis of a
process”, the logical contradictions vanish.
To describe, for example, how an organic body renews its cells
in the course of its interaction with its environment, and to describe
the “contradictory” relationship of the processes of decay and renewal
which make up its life, does not involve making logically contra-
dictory statements. On the contrary, the whole analysis is done in
strict conformity with the principles of consistency, or non-contradic-
tion, laid down by formal logic. Dialectics does not encourage us in
inconsistency, but, on the contrary, accepts the most rigid demands
of formal logical consistency of statement. To say “A thing is the
same and not the same” is a logical contradiction which no scientifically-
minded person can be “prepared to put up with”. To say “At every
moment it is assimilating new matter and excreting old matter” is
to give a more adequate account of it, and contains no logical con-
tradiction whatsoever. Dialectics does not permit logical contradic-
tions, but gets rid of them.
The truth is that if one says “It is the same and yet not the same”,
the question immediately raised by such an enigmatic statement is
the question: “In what respect is it the same, and in what respect
not the same?” For (as Aristotle pointed out when he originally
formulated the logical law of non-contradiction) to say that something
is in all respects the same and in all respects not the same is a logical
contradiction which cannot be allowed. To explain, then, “At every
moment it is assimilating new matter and excreting old matter” is
to answer the question about the respects in which the thing changes
while otherwise remaining the same. By supplying information about
the processes going on in the thing, it explains that while the thing
remains the same in respect of its external form it ceases to be the
same in respect of the matter composing it. From that one might
then further conclude that in all probability the external charac-
teristics will sooner or later undergo change as well and become
different as a result of internal changes.
When one thus undertakes, in accordance with dialectics, “a
thorough detailed analysis of a process”, which exhibits its contra-
dictory sides and how the character and mode of change of the whole
is determined by the relationship of these contradictory sides, the
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
36
result is something which, far from being logically self-contradictory,
completely satisfies all the logical criteria for scientific statement. We
get statements which can be verified or falsified, and which are
relevant to the drawing of probable conclusions about the further
development of a process.
This point can, incidentally, be put in a formalised way, in complete
accordance with the principles of formal logic. Let P be a process,
which contains contradictory sides or aspects A and B. If one then
considers A by itself, apart from its relationship with B, one can infer
a conclusion about P which may be written “A(P)”; and similarly,
considering B by itself, one infers the conclusion “B(P)”. These
conclusions are then incompatible or inconsistent with each other. If,
however, one makes a correct analysis of P, as containing the con-
tradictory sides A and B, one reaches the conclusion “AB(P)”. This
conclusion is a statement of the mode of relationship and interaction of
the contradictory sides of P ; and from it one may infer the probable
course of development of P.
The Marxist dialectic does not, as alleged, allow logical contradic-
tions. Nor is it designed, as alleged, for producing statements which
cannot be tested, but for precisely the opposite end — producing
scientific statements which can be tested. As for Dr. Popper, all he
has done is to derive logical absurdities from a pseudo-scientific theory
about “triads”, and then solemnly to inform his readers: This is what
Marxism means ! One is tempted to ask which he thinks the stupider —
the Marxists, or the readers to whom he presents such nonsense.
5. DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD
If dialectical materialism is not the nonsense Dr. Popper makes it out
to be, what exactly does it say? What is its content and aim, as a
philosophy?
One thing should be made clear at the outset, and that is that
Marx and Engels never and nowhere worked out a fully systematic
statement of dialectical materialism. All they did was to argue against
other views in philosophy and lay down certain guiding principles
for the development of their own. So the scientific philosophical
principles need more working out, and Marxism in this sphere means
working them out — on the basis of following up the indications
afforded by Marx and Engels, and following them up, moreover,
in a way that does not involve groundless dogmas, or logical absurdities,
THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF MARXISM
37
but accords with the advances of logical and scientific knowledge,
and social technology, achieved to date. These have gone considerably
past the point reached in Marx's day. Although Dr. Popper seems to
think that a bona fide Marxist is by definition ignorant of progress in
logical and mathematical analysis, scientific discovery and tech-
nological achievement, the job of Marxists is, on the contrary, to
take account of these matters and formulate the Marxist position
accordingly. Marxism, as I have said, is the continuation of Marx's
work. In this Marxists inevitably become involved in controversies
with one another, as well as with opponents of Marxism. That, of
course, is how the thing develops, how it continues.
The practitioner of reinforced refutation may fancy he detects here
a loophole for the insinuation of reinforced dogmatism. If Marxism
is permitted such rational and scientific development (lie will ask),
cannot any statement found valid be then labelled “Marxist", while
any discredited statement, even if made by a Marxist, will by definition
be excluded from “Marxism"? This is obviously a quibble. The
development of Marxism continues so long as it continues to follow
the original guiding principles. If these are refuted then Marxism is
destroyed, and if what is then propounded is still called “Marxism"
it is a mere impersonation. In the same way, we regard the man as
the same person as the boy; but if at a certain point he were knocked
on the head, laid out and buried, and someone else assumed his name,
we would regard that person as an impersonator. These sorts of
consideration apply to anything that grows, including scientific
theories.
I fully agree with Dr. Popper that all views should be subject to
continuous test, and modified or, if need be, scrapped, in the light of
it. But if I nevertheless remain a Marxist it is not because I except
Marxism from this critical principle, but because I do not interpret a
“critical" attitude as entailing readiness to fall over backwards in
deference to every “critic". For my part, I am a Marxist because I
have not yet found any logical or scientific argument that refutes
Marxism, though there are plenty that contribute to its development,
whereas I have always found that arguments which claim to refute
Marxism are neither logical nor scientific.
To arrive at a general idea of what dialectical materialism, as the
basic philosophical outlook exemplified or applied in Marxist social
theory, says and means in contemporary terms, it is advisable to
start by taking into account, first, what sort of question it seeks to
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
38
answer, and second, to what sort of answer it is opposed. Generally
speaking, these are two considerations of paramount importance for
the exposition and explanation of views. A sure way of misunder-
standing or misrepresenting what people mean is to suppose them to
be trying to answer some other question than the one that actually
interests them, and opposing other views than those they are actually
concerned to oppose.
I begin, then, by remarking on a question which dialectical
materialism is sometimes supposed to answer, but which is not the
question that it begins by posing. Dialectical materialism does not set
out to answer the question: “What is the nature of the universe ?”
It does not , therefore, consist of any set of statements about “the
totality of things”, or about “everything”, or about “the world as a
whole”, or about “the ultimate substance of things” or “the ultimate
structure of reality”. If it is supposed that dialectical materialism is the
sort of “metaphysical system” which proposes an answer to those
sorts of questions, then it is misunderstood and misrepresented from
the outset. As modem studies of logic and scientific method have
quite conclusively shown, those are all badly formulated questions
and any answers proposed to them are worthless because incapable
of any sort of test. And as Engels, anticipating these studies,
emphatically stated in his Ludwig Feuerbach: “One leaves ‘absolute
truth’ alone . . . instead, one pursues attainable, relative truths along
the path of the positive sciences”; and in the introduction to Anti-
Duhring: “Modern materialism ... no longer needs any philosophy
standing above the other sciences What still independently survives
of all former philosophy is the science of thought and its laws — formal
logic and dialectics. Everything else is merged in the positive science
of nature and history.”
Marxism and dialectical materialist philosophy emphatically teach
that well-grounded and reliable theory about ourselves and the
universe around us can be obtained only be the methodical investiga-
tion of particular phenomena open to observation, and is always
subject to the tests of experience. To ask, therefore, about the structure
of the universe as a whole, or about what kinds of things exist and
what are their properties and relations, in advance of investigation,
and to propound any theory which on general philosophical grounds
answers “it must be like this”, is as contrary to Marxism as it is
contrary to the accepted precepts of logic and scientific method. What
is sensible is rather to ask about the nature, constitution, structure or
THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF MARXISM
39
laws of operation of observable objects or processes — and to seek the
answer by the methods of science, and test it in experience. Such
knowledge as we can get about “the totality of things’ * can be got
only by piecing together items of knowledge about particular things —
hence it necessarily remains always incomplete and provisional. More-
over, Marxism is practical — it seeks to develop theory to inform
practice and to be tested in practice. Grandiose theories about “the
universe as a whole” do not inform practice, but only befuddle it,
and cannot be submitted to any practical test. To inform practice we
want testable theories about what concerns us in practice (just as Dr.
Popper himself maintains).
The question to which dialectical materialism proposes an answer
concerns rather the approach or method to be adopted in making and
developing reliable theory to inform practice and to be tested in
practice. Thus it rejects the invitation “Please invent a theory about
the nature of the universe”, but accepts the invitation “Please state
the principles to be adopted in making theories”. When we speak
about “materialism” and about “dialectics”, separately or together,
we are not propounding a philosophical theory about “everything”
in contrast to or supplementing scientific theories about particular
things, but we are propounding the approach or guiding principles
recommended for making theories.
We shall see later that dialectical materialism, as an answer to the
question “Please state the principles to be adopted in making theories”,
does nevertheless in a sense also supply an answer to the question
“What is the nature of the universe?” For to answer the question of
the approach to be adopted in making theories cannot but lead to
conclusions about the form of statements corresponding to accessible
reality. For example, any statement that can inform practice must deal
with things detectable by the senses and which exist only in their
interconnections with other things in processes of change. This shows
that the world we live in and get to know is a world of material
change; and that, of course, is a very general conclusion about “the
nature of the world”. The point is, first, that a question about “the
nature of the universe” cannot be answered directly, but only
derivatively via questions about approach and method; and second,
that the job of reliably informing ourselves about the world we
inhabit requires the investigation of particular things and not of “the
nature of the world as a whole”.
Dr. Popper mentions with some scorn the contention that Marxism
40
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
is not “a theory” but “a method”. It is, he insists, “a theory”. So it is —
it is a theory employing a method. Marxism is a theory about human
affairs employing the method of dialectical materialism. But dialectical
materialism is not a theory about “everything” added to theories
about particular matters of concern. Marxism does not have a theory
about human affairs plus the theory of dialectical materialism, but its
theory is dialectical materialist. And the same principles for making
theory which are exemplified and applied in Marxist theory about
man are found implicit also in all scientific theory about nature.
Dialectical materialism is “fundamental” in Marxism, not in the
sense of its being a dogma about the universe into which everything
must somehow or other be made to fit, regardless of the facts, but in
the sense of its being a generalised statement of the principles of
approach or method to be adopted in studying facts in such a way as
to arrive at “the concrete analysis of concrete conditions”, or the
“thorough detailed analysis of a process”.
But that, it may be objected, abolishes the peculiar character of
dialectical materialism as “the philosophy of Marxism” and merely
equates it with “scientific method’. In the broadest sense, it is true,
materialist dialectics can claim to be “nothing but scientific method”.
This is just what Lenin said: it is “nothing more nor less than the
scientific method . . .”. The distinguishing feature of Marxism is
not that it invents and uses some new-fangled method of its own,
quite different from the method evolved, used and approved in the
normal conduct of the sciences, but that it develops and applies
scientific method universally , and that includes drawing conclusions
about men, human society and human affairs. Marxism seeks to apply
scientific ways of understanding to everything that comes within
human ken, including humanity itself. It is therefore critical of and
opposed to traditional ways of understanding ourselves t which are by
no means scientific — and this is what primarily distinguishes Marxism
as a philosophy or outlook opposed to what is still generally current.
Of course, scientific understanding of ourselves relies on already
achieved scientific understanding of nature, for man becomes what he
is and lives by his intercourse with nature. At the same time (and this
is a point our English Marxist Christopher Caudwell emphasised in
The Crisis in Physics ), by understanding the relation of men with
nature it enhances and corrects the concept of nature, which is to
some extent distorted so long as men’s intercourse with nature is
misconceived.
THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF MARXISM
41
But while materialist dialectics is in truth “nothing more nor less
than scientific method”, that does not by any means reduce the field
of inquiry of Marxist philosophy to the problems commonly debated
by non-Marxists under the heading of “scientific method”. If we were
to take Dr. Popper as our guide, these would be simply problems about
the formal criteria of differentiation between “scientific” and “non-
scientific” theories (the scientific ones are “falsifiable”), plus some
problems about probability, induction (so-called), and the special
techniques required for special investigations. I do not wish to suggest
that these are not genuine problems, or that Dr. Popper and other
contemporary writers on “scientific method” and “the logic of
scientific discovery” have not dealt with them usefully. But it would
not be true to suggest that the field of inquiry of dialectical
materialism is reduced to “nothing more nor less” than these problems
— because while these problems do fall within it, it comprises a great
deal more .
Dialectical materialism is primarily concerned with something
which these more limited inquiries about scientific method neglect,
namely, the way of thinking , the principles of working with and assembling
concepts , requisite for scientific understanding in general. As Engels put
it in the Preface of Anti-Duhring , the results of scientific work are
summarised in concepts “but the art of working with concepts is not
inborn and is not given with ordinary everyday consciousness, but
requires real thought”; and consequently to master facts by theory
we should be “equipped with the consciousness of the laws of dialectical
thought”. Science, he added, “can no longer escape the dialectical
synthesis”. But “to make this process easier for itself”, it must not
only rid itself of so-called “philosophy standing apart from it, outside
it and above it”, but also of its own traditional “limited method of
thought”.
This brings me to the question of the sort of approaches to which
dialectical materialism is opposed . Marx and Engels said over and
over again^that it is opposed to “idealism” and to “metaphysics”.
Its opposition to “idealism” is expressed by the word “materialism”,
and to “metaphysics” by die word “dialectics”. These words, expres-
sive of opposition — “materialism” against “idealism”, and dialectics”
against “metaphysics” — arc here used in rather specialised senses
(different from those in which the same words are sometimes used
in other contexts) which must now be explained.
2
THE MATERIALIST APPROACH
I. MATERIALISM VERSUS IDEALISM
“The great basic question of all philosophy,” wrote Engels {Ludwig
Feuerbach , Chapter 2) concerns “the relation of thinking and being.
. . . The answers which the philosophers gave to this question split
them into two great camps. Those who asserted the primacy of spirit
to nature . . . comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded
nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism .”
Alice was reproached by the March Hare and the Mad Hatter with
obscurity of utterance. Whatever could she mean? Similarly, many
Wonderland philosophers profess themselves baffled by the obscurity
of Engels’ statements. But like his younger contemporary, he simply
meant what he said.
In the above statement Engels opposed “thinking” to “being”, and
“spirit” to “nature”, and said that “the great basic question of all
philosophy” concerned which side of this opposition was “prior” to
the other. Evidently, the opposition is that of the “material” on the
one side, and the “non-material’ ’ (° r ‘ 'ideal”) on the other. He
classed “being” and “nature” as “material”, and “thinking” and
“spirit” as “non-material”. This is the sort of terminology regarded
as so very obscure by many philosophers nowadays — but it is merely
expressive of distinctions which are perfectly familiar to everyone,
and which receive perfectly precise expression in the things people
ordinarily say, however much some philosphers may try to confuse
them.
The “material”, as people ordinarily understand it (and we need
not credit Engels with intending to give ordinary words any extra-
ordinary meaning), is the sort of thing which affects the senses — which
we can see, hear, smell, touch or taste. The non-material, on the other
hand, is not accessible to the senses. Thus, for example, a tree or a
mountain is material, whereas the idea of a tree or of a mountain is
non-material. In ordinary language we would say that we see or touch
a material thing, whereas we think or understand an idea. It would
be as nonsensical to say that “we think a tree” as that “we see a
thought”. Again, a person’s body is material, but his thoughts, desires,
THE MATERIALIST APPROACH
43
and other operations of his mind or “spirit” are non-material. Hence
the opposition which Engels posed, between the material and non-
material, or between “being” and “thinking”, or “nature” and “spirit”,
is both familiar and obvious.
From this opposition there ensues the opposition between materialism
and idealism in theory, depending on the answer to the question
“which is prior”, the material or the non-material. To be an idealist is
to approach questions of the analysis and explanation of phenomena
on the basis that there are ideas, intentions and purposes (whether of
God or man), and that what is or happens is made what it is or made
to happen by them, i.e. that the non-material is prior to the material.
To be a materialist , on the other hand, is to approach such questions
on the basis that there are material things and happenings, and that
ideas about them, and intentions and purposes relating to them,
result from the material circumstances in which such ideas, intentions
and purposes are engendered, i.e. that the material is prior to the
non-material.
Thus to say that thunderstorms, for example, are manifestations of
the anger of the gods exhibits an idealist approach, whereas to say
that they are electrical disturbances exhibits a materialist approach.
Again, to say that a social event (for instance, the French Revolution)
is the expression of some idea (such as the idea of liberty) exhibits
an idealist approach ; whereas to say that it results from class struggles
rooted in the relations of production (from which also arise the
characteristic ideas motivating the event) exhibits a materialist
approach. Again, to say (as certain modern philosophers have said)
that material objects are logical constructions out of the data of sense
exhibits an idealist approach; whereas to say that the data of sense
are the means whereby we become aware of material objects exhibits
a materialist approach.
All theories exhibit an idealist or a materialist approach (or in many
cases a muddled and inconsistent mixture of the two), and “the great
basic question of philosophy” is the question of which is the right
approach to make.
Marxism recommends and adopts a consistently materialist approach
to all questions ; and it propounds and bases itself upon a materialist
philosophy in as much as it investigates and formulates die guiding
principles of a consistently materialist approach, in opposition to
idealism. What are these principles?
The first principle of materialism, as presented by the Marxist
44
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
materialist philosophy, is that material processes certainly take place,
and material things certainly exist, independent of any ideas about them.
To explain this we need to enter a little further into the meaning of
such words as “material” and “matter”, and the implications of their
use. The use of the adjective “material” derives its meaning, of course,
only from its opposition to “ideal”, “mental” or “spiritual”. Thus
we speak of “matter” and “material processes” in contrast to “mind”,
“spirit” and “ideas”. Thus if, for example, one says that a dining-room
table is “material” one is not specifying some property of it, as one is
when one says it is “made of wood” or “has a plastic top”. One is
simply contrasting and distinguishing it from one’s idea of a table,
emphasising that it is there in the dining-room independently of one’s
idea of it.
Materialism asserts the independence , the independent existence , of
whatever is material. The use of the word “material”, in the Marxist
statement of the fundamental standpoint of materialism, emphasises
the existence of the material world independent of the ideas and per-
ceptions by which we become aware of it, and of any other ideas, or
ideal or spiritual entities, which may be imagined to exist.
Thus in his work Materialism and Etnpirio-Criticism Lenin carefully
explained that to speak of “material” things and processes, and in
general of “matter” and of “the material world”, does not imply
any particular theory of the constitution of material things (not, for
instance, that they are made of “matter”, as distinct from being made
of something else, such as “energy”; nor that they consist of “solid
particles” as opposed, say, to “wave motions”). It implies their
objective existence, -independent of our own or any other conscious-
ness of them or ideas about them. As to the constitution of material
things — what they are made of, what their structure is, what properties
they have — that has to be found out by investigating them, and much
of the product of such investigation must remain at the level of
conjecture.
Lenin’s exposition of the use of the terms “matter” and “material”
in the statement of the fundamental standpoint of materialism was
made in answer to those idealists who claimed that the discoveries of
physics had demonstrated that “matter does not exist” and that
“materialism is out of date”. True, the older materialist philosophies
(derived from ancient speculations in Greece, China and India) were
associated with a definite theory about the constitution of matter,
namely, that the material world consists of solid indivisible particles,
THE MATERIALIST APPROACH
45
or “atoms”, moving about in empty space. In the seventeenth century
Descartes regarded matter in another way, as “extended substance”
filling space, and invented a theory of “vortices” in matter to account
for various observed phenomena. Maxwell later elaborated the same
type of idea when he postulated the “ether” which fills the whole of
space and in which electro-magnetic waves occur. The old atomic
theory of matter was discredited by subsequent investigations of the
atom, and the theory of the ether was discredited by investigations
of electro-magnetic phenomena and replaced by the theory of
relativity. But that does not mean that physics has shown that there is
no such thing as matter, or material process. The idealists who said it
had were simply confusing materialism in general with relics of pre-
scientific materialist speculation. Modem physics has replaced pre-
scientific speculation by scientific investigation. That does not make
materialism out of date, but only out-dates certain speculative
materialist hypotheses.
Does this, then, reduce materialism to nothing but the bare abstract
assertion that there is an objective reality independent of ideas? No,
for material things and processes are known to us through our sensa-
tions and perceptions. As Lenin put it: “Matter is that which, acting
upon our sense-organs, produces sensation; matter is the objective
reality given to us in sensation.” Materialism does not consist in the
merely empty assertion that something or other exists independent
of ideas, but asserts that objective reality — the material world — has
the fundamental characteristics of being knowable through the senses,
that is, of causal process in space and time .
The first principle of materialism can therefore be put like this : that
causal process in space and time, given- to us in sensation, exists or
continues independently of any mind or spirit, consciousness or idea.
The second principle is the complement of this, and denies the in-
dependent existence of anything non-material. Perceptions, ideas,
intentions, feelings, purposes, ideals, consciousness and mind only
exist as products of particular kinds of material processes. They are the
perceptions, ideas and so on of material organisms, products of the
functioning of specific organs of their bodies, formed in the conditions
of their material mode of life.
For materialism, then, there is nothing outside the material world.
There is no separate or independent spiritual world, no mind or spirit
separate from matter. There is one world, the material world; and,
as Engels put it in Anti-Duhring , “ the unity of the world consists in its
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
46
materiality”. “Space and time,” he wrote, are “the basic forms of all
being”. There is nothing apart from what is comprised in causal
process in space and time; and all those phenomena which we call
mental or spiritual take place within the material world, as products of
particular forms of material motion at particular times and places.
Thirdly, then, materialism propounds the principles for a theory of
man,* a general account of ourselves. We ourselves are material organ-
isms. And as such we become aware of ourselves and of our environ-
ment through the sensations which we obtain in the course of our
material interactions, and through the processes of thought which we
develop from our sensations. Although our senses may often deceive
us and our ideas often prove illusory, nevertheless the material world
which is given to us in our sensations, and which supplies all the data
for our thought, objectively exists as the arena of all our action and
the object of all our consciousness and knowledge. We get to know
it and to know ourselves, and to master material processes for our own
purposes and learn how to satisfy our needs, by active investigation, in
which theory is first drawn from practical experience and then tested
in it.
Such, then, are the basic philosophical principles of materialism, as
presented by Marxist philosophy in opposition to idealism.
Dr. Popper, as we saw, has kindly said that there can be “no serious
objection” to materialism, provided it is “reformulated” in some
unspecified but nevertheless “comparatively easy” way. But he adds:
“I should not describe myself as a materialist.” This addition bears
witness, at least, to his honesty. For his part, he simply emphasises that
theories should be susceptible to experiential test, and so be falsifiable;
and he presumably finds no objection to materialism in so far, and only
in so far, as it advocates that theories should be testable in experience.
But he would not call himself a materialist because he regards the best
of the theories as no more than conjectures, which one makes in order
then to engage in the scientific pursuit of trying to falsify them —
whereas materialism would generally be understood to imply (and
Marx's materialism certainly does imply) something more. However
conjectural and subject to correction particular theories about parti-
cular things may be, materialism means claiming that there are principles
to be adopted in formulating theories which are not conjectures at all,
but are certainly true.
Dr. Popper's exclusive emphasis on the conjectural character of
scientific theories comes from his exclusive preoccupation with the
THE MATERIALIST APPROACH
M
way those theories are made subject to experiential test . Well of course,
scientific theories are made subject to experiental test — otherwise they
would not be scientific; and consequently they always do have a
conjectural or provisional character. But what is the point of such
theories? Why should it be considered so vitally important to place
our whole trust in conjectures which are subject to experiential test
and may therefore be falsified? Why prefer the hazard of reliance on
conjectural and falsifiable theories to the assurance and satisfaction of
reliance on unfalsifiable ones? Dr. Popper accuses Marxism of pro-
pagating a reinforced dogmatism which is incapable of falsification
and can provide a ready-made answer to any question. Marxism does
at least answer the above questions, which is more than he can do. And
in answering them we may now accuse him in return of inclining to a
one-sided account of scientific theory, which is totally incapable of
answering pertinent questions about science.
We do not conjecture the existence of the material processes of which
we ourselves are part and on which our very being, our whole
conscious existence depends. We get to know them, and in knowing
them learn in some degree to master them for our own purposes.
That is what we do through science, and that is why scientific theories,
made subject to experiential test, are so important for us.
2. THE CASE AGAINST IDEALISM
Engels had no doubt at all that materialism is the right approach, and
idealism wrong — and the reasons for his confidence on this point are
pretty clear. He was not a dogmatist who believed himself the prophet
of some revelation “that matter is prior”. He was simply a scientific
thinker, distinguished by a capacity for generalising the principles of
his thinking, who realised that the idealist approach could never be
productive of anything but what he called “fancies” — that is, theories
which could not be tested, or which would be, as Dr. Popper now
expresses it, “unfalsifiable”; whereas the materialist approach is the
only one to produce testable theories. Thus in Chapter 4 of Ludwig
Feuerbach he proceeded to justify the decision always to adopt the
materialist approach, as follows: “It was resolved to comprehend the
real world — nature and history— just as it presents itself to everyone
who approaches it free from preconceived idealist fancies. It was
decided relentlessly to sacrifice every idealist fancy which could not be
brought into harmony with the facts conceived in their own and not
48
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
in a fantastic connection. Materialism means nothing more than
this/’
Evidently, then, it cannot be claimed that a theory is true because it
is materialist — the truth of a theory can be substantiated only by testing
and retesting it in experience. On the other hand, there can be no
scientifically valid grounds for adopting any theory unless it is material-
ist. Particular idealist theories may be rejected because they make
assertions 'which do not accord with experience — but every idealist
theory may be rejected, not because experience shows it to be false (for
whatever the experience, some idealist fancy or other can always be
thought up to account for it), but because it is a mere “preconceived
fancy” which no experience can substantiate. However much particular
materialist theories may be falsified by events, we can remain sure that
the right explanation is along materialist lines; and however well
particular idealist theories may evade falsification, we can remain sure
that they are nevertheless mere fancies. That is why Marxism rejects
every idealist theory about human affairs. But it does not adopt its
own materialist theory because it claims to be able to deduce it from
“first principles of materialist philosophy”. It adopts it because the
investigation of human affairs leads to it; and Marxists continue to
stand by it and develop it because it continues to ring true as a guide to
practice unfalsified by the event.
If we want to inform our practice, we cannot but follow the paths
of materialism. If we want to find out what we are and what we can
do, what our real needs are and how we can satisfy them, the materialist
approach must be our guide.
What is the fundamental error in idealism, as a way of thinking?
To say, for example, that there are disembodied spirits, or first
causes, or eternal forms (as different schools of idealism have said) is a
quite different kind of error from saying that there are unicorns or
phoenixes or (as Aristotle said in his treatise on zoology) sabre-toothed
tigers. Similarly, it is a different kind of error to say that thunderstorms
are caused by gods getting angry than it is to say (as certain early
materialist speculations erroneously suggested) that they are caused by
heavy particles in clouds banging against each other. Again, it is a
different kind of error to say that one gets from Golders Green Crema-
torium to Heaven via the ministrations of the Church of England than
it is to say that one gets from London to Birmingham via Crewe.
The latter sorts of error consist in wrongly describing and relating
material things, and can be exposed and corrected in the course of
THE MATERIALIST APPROACH
49
practice, by observation and experiment. The former sorts of error are
different, since spirits, first causes, eternal forms, gods and the way to
Heaven are not observable, so that statements about them cannot be
checked in the same practical empirical way. When one theologian
says that only one angel can stand on the point of a needle while
another says it will accommodate more, the way to enforce the one
view against the other is to convene a church council and get the one
party excommunicated, since it is impossible to devise any instrument
for measuring the size of angels’ feet.
All statement abstracts. For example, to say “This rose is red”
abstracts a particular rose from the total environment, and its colour
from the totality of its other properties. If a particular rose is red and
I say that it is white, my statement is false in point of fact. The
erroneousness or falsity of idealist statements, on the other hand, is not
in the same way factual but consists in a false abstraction . Thus to say
“Mr. Smith is at the office”, when in fact he has cut work to watch a
cricket match, is to make a statement in which the abstraction of an
object (Mr. Smith) from its environment, and of its whereabouts from
the totality of its properties and relations, has been quite properly done,
and the object has merely been asserted to be located somewhere else
than where it is actually to be found. On the other hand, to say
(supposing Mr. Smith to have died) “Mr. Smith’s soul is in Heaven”
is to make an improper abstraction — for to abstract Mr. Smith’s soul
from Mr. Smith is to make an abstraction such that the resulting state-
ments cannot possibily be checked; and similarly to speak of Heaven is
to speak of a place abstracted from space and time is such a manner
that there is no possible way of finding who is or is not present there.
The fundamental error of idealism, as a way of thinking, lies in its
making false abstractions. This way of thinking is a habit, a method, a
systematic use of false abstraction.
Thus for example, an idealist historian may faithfully report that
William the Conquerer won the Battle of Hastings and that King John
signed Magna Carta. He may make no misstatement of fact. He does
not say that people did things which they did not do, or did not do
things which they did do. Some historians do go wrong in that way
too, but it is not in this that idealism consists. Idealism consists in
abstracting “minds”, “souls”, “spirits”, “ideas”, “intentions”, “ten-
dencies”, and the like, in such a way as to represent them as independent
entities, independent forces, which are then the operative causes of
historical events.
50
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
Now of course, people do have ideas and do act consciously; and if
this characteristic of their activity is not taken into account, then their
activity is misrepresented. But to represent “mind” or “consciousness”
as though it were something which existed and operated independent
of and prior to the total life activity of people who are conscious is to
make a false abstraction. As Marx put it in the Preface to Critique of
Political Economy , “it is not the consciousness of men that determines
their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their
consciousness”.
Similarly, Mr. Smith is conscious, and in that respect he differs from
an automaton. To describe his mental processes and conscious motives
is to abstract certain features of his life-process from the rest and to
describe them, just as to describe, say, his eating habits and digestive
processes is to make an abstraction. But it is not a false abstraction.
What is a false abstraction is to say that his consciousness exists
independently of his conscious activity in his material environment.
To say he has a mind separate from his brain is rather like saying he
has a digestion separate from his stomach.
These examples make it evident that idealism is not a way of
thinking invented by idealist philosophers. What the philosophers have
done is rather to generalise and systematise popular ways of thinking
(embodied in superstitions, myths and religions) into elaborate
theories about the universe and about man and human knowledge.
But in so doing, they have not only theorised about minds and spirits,
human and divine, but engaged in further flights of false abstraction
which the unphilosophical would never attempt.
Thus, for example, Plato and all those philosophers who have been
influenced by him right up to the present day abstracted the “forms”
or “qualities” or “essences” of things, bestowed on them an idealised
existence separate from and prior to things, and said that things are
what they are because they partake of the form or essence. This
doctrine is sometimes known as “realism” (though it is not very
“realistic” in the common sense of that word), or better, “objective
idealism”. In modern philosophy there arose a quite different doctrine,
often known as “subjective idealism” (its clearest exponent was the
Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley). While objective idealism
supposed the supersensible and divine essences to be somehow appre-
hended and known by the intellect independent of the senses, subjective
idealism arose from theorising about how we gain knowledge through
our senses. It consists in abstracting the data of sense from the total
THE MATERIALIST APPROACH
51
situation in which a person is aware of his surroundings, bestowing on
them an independent existence, and then saying that we have no reason
to suppose that anything else exists and that what we call “material
objects” are merely mental constructs out of sense-data.
The examples show how false abstraction differs from false state-
ment of fact. At the same time, false abstraction does make a certain
kind of misrepresentation of fact: it misrepresents the ways happenings
are connected and determined. For in place of the real connection and
determination of events it poses a fantastic connection and deter-
mination. For example, if you say that Mr. Smith cut work because of
the sinful pleasure-seeking propensities of his soul, you have repre-
sented his action as being determined by what goes on in his soul,
whereas in fact it is determined by what goes on in his brain. For this
reason an idealist way of thinking may, and usually does, lead to over-
looking happenings, and connections between them, which a material-
ist way of thinking leads one to search for and discover. Marx’s
materialist approach led him to study economic processes and relations
of production which the idealists had ignored — because their idealist
way of explaining what happened made them blind to the significance
of these processes and relations. They excused themselves from having
to make the kind of scientific investigation Marx made.
As Engels put it, materialism, or the materialist approach, consists
in refusing to engage in “idealist fancy” or false abstraction, and
resolving to comprehend the facts “in their own and not in a fantastic
connection”. This involves investigating the facts in such a way as to
find out what their own real connections are. To engage in idealist
fancies, on the other hand, is to excuse oneself from any such investiga-
tion.
3. THE CASE FOR MATERIALISM
The recommendation of the materialist approach is often opposed as a
mere arbitrary dogma, and the materialist theoretical principles as
incapable of proof. It is indeed logically impossible to prove from
theoretical considerations alone that the materialist approach is
requisite for the discovery of truth, and idealism productive only of
fantasy. But that does not mean that materialism is to be dismissed as
unproven. One great contribution made by Marx to the substantiation
of the materialist approach was to have shown that its recommenda-
tion is a conclusion from the requirements of practice , and is grounded
on practical considerations.
52
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
“The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking isolated
from practice is a purely scholastic question”, wrote Marx, in his
Theses on Feuerbach. If you set out to reach conclusions about what
exists or does not exist, about which is prior, thinking or being, and
about how tilings are really connected, by a purely theoretical deduc-
tion from premises to conclusions, without any reference to practice
and to what practice requires and what can be learned from it, then
you can dispute for ever but can never prove any conclusion. Logic
itself proves tills. For it proves that no existential conclusion can
follow from any but an existential premise, and that no existential
premise can be certified by pure theory as self-evidently or necessarily
true. There are and can be no theoretically certified premises from
which one can conclude as to how the world must be and how true
theory can be worked out and tested.
But theories are made by living people, who are not pure intel-
ligences engaged in theorising, but practical agents whose practice
leads them to theorise. “Social life is essentially practical”, Marx
continued. “All mysteries which mislead theory into mysticism find
their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of
this practice.” The right approach to making theories, which will
enable people in social practice to comprehend the facts in their own
and not in a fantastic connection, has to be learned from trying to meet
the requirements of practice , and is proved in terms of practical require-
ments and in no other way. It is a practical question, not an exclusively
theoretical one — and has to be answered as such.
In theorising about practice Marxism brings into the practical
argument in favour of materialism the conclusions of the empirical
investigation of the actual conditions of human life. Marxism does not
argue in terms of the bare abstract oppositions of “practice” against
“theory”, but in terms of a concrete analysis of human practice, which
shows how theory and practice can be made one, in such a way that
theories are consciously derived from practical experience and serve
to inform practice.
What, then, is “practice”? What does this word mean in the context
of the Marxist argument in favour of the materialist theoretical
approach?
To talk of “practice”, in this context, is to talk about certain activi-
ties (or certain aspects of the activity) of human beings. In other
contexts one may well talk about the practice of chimpanzees in
swinging through the trees, or of bees in building honeycombs, but
THE MATERIALIST APPROACH
53
in the present context “practice" means “human practice”. The word
is used to refer to certain unique kinds of activity performed by human
beings.
Of course, if organic life has evolved on other planets in the galaxies,
and has evolved forms similar in relevant respects to human beings on
the earth, then what we say about human practice would apply equally
to the practice of these similar organisms. They would be able to draw
conclusions from their practice in the same way as we do. In general,
the laws of thought are the rules for drawing conclusions from practice ; and
they would be the same for any thinking organism, just as the laws of
nature would be. However, it will be convenient to ignore the possible
existence of conscious intelligent life on other planets than the earth,
and continue to talk only about ourselves — with the proviso that what
we say about ourselves would presumably apply also to other organ-
isms sufficiently like us.
Human practice is characterised by its being at once conscious,
purposive and productive.
In The German Ideology Marx and Engels wrote that men “begin
to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce
their means of subsistence." " It is from the labour process that the whole
of human practice derives its distinctive human character— just as it is
from the forces of production and the relations which people enter
into in using them that human society derives its specific features.
Writing of the labour process, Marx said in Capital (Vol. i, Chapter 27)
that it is “a process in which both man and nature participate, and in
which man of his own accord starts, regulates and controls the material
reactions between himself and nature . . . setting in motion arms and
legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appro-
priate nature"s productions in a form adapted to his own wants"".
Human labour, he continued, differs from the various constructive
operations of other animals. “A bee puts to shame many an architect
in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst of
architects from the best of bees is that the architect raises his structure
in imagination before he erects it in reality."" From this is derived the
distinctive character of human practice. The practical activities of the
human body and its organs, in which individual men interact with
objects environing them, arc consciously directed to an end which
already exists “in imagination"". And by so acting people change
external objects so as to adapt them to their wants.
In the Theses on Feuerbach Marx described human practice as “activity
54
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
through objects” — it consists of men's conscious interactions with
objects in the course of which they purposively turn objects to their
own use. It is because of the way we turn objects to our use (i.e. act
on them consciously, purposively and productively) that we form
ideas of them — of their existence, their properties and relations, and of
what we can do with them. Those ideas, Marx concluded, are first
formed in human practice, and they can only be tested in practice,
which he termed “human sensuous activity”. It is in practice, and only
in practice, that we can establish the truth about objects.
By calling practice “sensuous activity” Marx was calling attention
to the circumstance that all our conscious action on objects depends
on their acting on our sense-organs. The operations of the hands, to
which he refers in describing the labour process, have to be initiated by
and guided by sense-perceptions. It was with this in mind that Engels
replied (in the Introduction to Socialism , Utopian and Scientific) to those
philosophers who argued that there are no good grounds for supposing
that any objects at all exist corresponding to our perceptions. “This
line of reasoning”, he said, “seems undoubtedly hard to beat by mere
argument. But before there was argument there was action. . . . And
human action had solved the difficulty long before human ingenuity
invented it. . . . From the moment we turn objects to our own use we
put to an infallible test the correctness or otherwise of our perceptions.
If these perceptions have been wrong, then our estimate of the use to
which an object can be turned must also be wrong, and our attempt
must fail. But if we succeed in accomplishing our aim, if we find that
the object does agree with our idea of it and does answer the purpose
we intended it for, then that is positive proof that our perceptions of
it and of its qualities, so far, agree with reality outside ourselves . . .
the result of our action proves the conformity of our perceptions with
the objective nature of the things perceived.”
It is, of course, inherent in practice that it can be successful or un-
successful — and that in varying degree. In so far as what people do fails
to meet the end they set themselves, or fails to satisfy their wants,
practice is unsuccessful. So there is always a kind of “trial and error”
going on in practice. And in this we test and (if we have any sense)
try to correct our ideas.
Human practice requires, and always must require, to be informed .
By this I mean that in order to act on the objects surrounding us in a
practical way, so as to contrive to turn them to our own use, we must
first of all manage to obtain perceptions from which to conclude as to
THE MATERIALIST APPROACH
55
how things actually are, and then formulate (in language) concepts and
theories about the properties and connections of objects in the light of
which we can plan out what to do.
The information which we require for practice begins with sensa-
tions. But sensations, or sense-perceptions, are not themselves in-
formation, in the sense in which I am here using the word. On the other
hand, all information is derived from and checked by perception.
Being conscious, purposive and productive, human practice has a
social co-operative character. A man on his own can, of course, do all
sorts of things; but that is only because he learns at least the rudiments
of human practice in association with other men. To conceive purposes,
to imagine something that can be made and to set about making it,
people have to work together and learn from each other. They have
to have evolved language, or the means of communication in articulate
speech. The information which practice requires is communicable , and is
expressed in sentences and conveyed by language. Sensations are not com-
municable; but aware through sensation of the objects of their practical
activity, people formulate and communicate information about
objects to inform and guide their practice.
A builder, for example, could not build anything unless he could
see (or at least touch) his various building materials. But the mere sight
of a lot of bricks does not by itself supply the information required for
building. In this, as Marx observed, the human builder differs from,
and shows his superiority to, various other animals which build things.
For the nesting bird it suffices to see a bit of straw, and it picks it up and
adds it to the nest: it acts instinctively, and does not require to be
informed, as people do. Hence also it can get along with merely
chirruping, and does not require to speak and be spoken to. The
human builder, on the other hand, not only distinguishes the various
materials of his trade by sight, but also requires such information about
them as “This is a brick”, “This is the hod for carrying bricks”, “This
is the mortar to stick them together”, and so on. And as well as such
particular information, be also requires information of a more generalised
kind, such as “The bricks must be aligned like this or else the wall will
fall down”. True, a skilled man knows all this by heart, and does not
keep repeating it to himself all the time, or asking his mates. He does
not mutter to himself “This is a brick” every time he picks one up, or
consult with his mates to decide what it is. Nevertheless it is on such
communicable information that his skill is based.
Theory is required by men to inform practice. And while the word
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
56
“theory” is commonly reserved for communications of a certain
degree of generality, every item of information is, strictly speaking,
an item of theory. The theory of an object generalises about it beyond
whatever is immediately present to the senses at any time. Evidently
therefore, such a statement as “This is a brick” is a theory — in just the
same way as “This is a structure in which atoms are arranged in a
certain pattern” is a theory: the second statement embodies more
generalised theory than the first, that is the only .difference. In fact, all
statements are theories. And theoretical work or activity does not,
rightly understood, consist exclusively in cooking up particular kinds
of very generalised statements, but in arranging, co-ordinating,
checking and criticising statements for the purpose of assembling
information.
Theory to inform practice must fulfd, then, two very obvious con-
ditions. First, it must deal with sensible objects f their properties and
relations. For since our practice consists of interactions with objects
that affect our senses, it is obvious that what informs practice is in-
formation about such objects. Second, what it says must be capable of
being tested in the practical experience of our interactions with objects.
This means that it must lead us to expect that certain observable
happenings will result in other observable happenings : if they do not,
then the theory is (so far at least) falsified.
Thus, for example, the theory that informs building operations
deals with sensible objects, such as bricks. And what it says about them
is capable of experiential test. The theory that “This is a brick” would
be falsified if, on picking it up, it went off Bang ! And the more general
theory of building would be falsified if, in the absence of eathquakes
or air raids, most of the buildings fell down. Obviously, a theory
incapable of falsification would not impart any expectation regarding
the objects we deal with in practice, and so would not inform practice.
That is why the condition of falsification, which Dr. Popper so properly
and vehemently stresses, is of such great practical importance in the
making of theory.
The practical reason for keeping theory materialist is now evident.
It is that only on that condition can theory inform and continue to
inform practice.
But does not idealist theory also claim to inform practice, and to
supplement in important ways statements about material things?
Let us suppose that someone asks the way to church, and is told:
“Straight on and the second on the right — then you will get to the
THE MATERIALIST APPROACH
57
church.” Having acted on this theory and found the church, he then
asks the way to Heaven, and is told: “Pay two-and-sixpence and light
a candle — then when you die your soul will go to Heaven.” He acts
on this theory too, and pays up and lights the candle. But it does not
inform his practice in the way the other theory did, because in the first
place it concerns his soul, which is not an object in any way accessible
to the senses, and in the second place it cannot be tested in experience
and is incapable of verification or falsification. He is not informed ,
but is simply handed out instructions which he has to take on trust.
Information is capable of being tested in practice as you follow it up —
but not the theory handed out in church. What is the faithful believer
to do when he meets an atheist who tells him he has no soul and there
is no such place as Heaven, or when he visits another place of worship
where they tell him it is not of the slightest use lighting candles? He
can only reaffirm his faith.
This example illustrates the difference between informative and un-
informative theory. And it also shows how easy it is to suppose that
uninformative theory is informative. It appears to be informative
because it prescribes certain courses of action, just as informative
theory does. “You want certain results? Then do something. You want
to go to church? Then take the second on the right. You want to save
your soul? Then light a candle.” But it prescribes without informing.
For the end which the prescription is prescribed to serve is defined as
lying outside practical recognition, and whether it is achieved or not
cannot be practically decided. It simply instructs you what to do, but
offers no test of whether it leads to the results claimed for it.
All idealism bears this deceptive character. The idealist false abstrac-
tion is a pretence at information. It simulates information, and often
stands as a substitute for it — but it does not inform. It is sham informa-
tion. It is in this that its falsity consists. Information is true or false, and
one can decide which by testing it in practice. But sham information
cannot be tested. It does not present the same alternative of “true or
false” because it is not susceptible to any decision procedure. It is
“false”, not in the sense in which a statement of fact is false when
objects are related differently from how the statement says they are,
but in the sense in which, say, a beggar on horseback is a false gentle-
man — it is not what it purports to be.
It is perhaps partly for these reasons that, in a scientific age, there is
a growing tendency, at all events within the Christian religion, for
religious believers to maintain that what is important, what really
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
58
counts, in Christian teachings, are its precepts about the development
of individual personality and human relations rather than its doctrines
about another world. This is one of the reasons for the development
of the contemporary “dialogue” between Christians and Communists,
who on such questions find themselves in a good deal more agreement
than either side previously supposed could be possible. What would
be left of religion, and how long it could survive as an institution,
supposing its precepts to be detached from the false abstractions with
which they have always hitherto been associated, is a problem for
the religious. So far as Marxists are concerned, we are not disposed to
quarrel with people about what may happen to us after we are dead
if we are able to reach a measure of agreement as to what to do so long
as we remain alive. Marxists consider that to decide the latter questions
we require only verified information about the conditions of our
life in this world. Our grounds for always adopting a strictly material-
istic approach in theory, and always rejecting the idealist approach,
consist in the fact that only by adopting the materialist approach can
we hope to inform our practice , whereas the idealist approach can
never achieve anything but a pretence at information.
It may be said that we do not want merely to inform our practice
but to discover “the truth”, which serves higher ends than mundane
practical ones. But what is this but to use the phrase “the truth” for
the purpose of embellishing groundless fancies which serve to dictate
modes of practice but not to inform them? We have no other way of
seeking truth — that is, framing our ideas so as to correspond with the
facts — than by seeking to inform our practice and testing our ideas
accordingly.
Again, it is said that to adopt a view according to which man is a
purely material being, with no “soul”, is to adopt a very narrow view
of human practice — for men are deeply concerned with “spiritual”
things too, and impoverish themselves if they ignore them. Well, of
course we are not concerned in practice only with material satis-
factions, but with the satisfactions to be got from human relations,
from love and companionship, and from cultivating all the higher
human qualities of individuals. If by “soul” and “spiritual life” these
things are meant, then of course it is no “fancy” to say that we possess
souls and the capacity for spiritual life, and our practice includes our
spiritual life too. But to recognise that does not require us to postulate
immortal souls distinct from bodies. As a matter of fact, those who
do so have so far signally failed to do much to raise the capacity for
THE MATERIALIST APPROACH
59
“spiritual life” of the majority of human beings. For if people’s
material life is impoverished, they do not get much chance to cultivate
the things of the spirit— just as they do not do so either if they fail
to appreciate the real character of human relations and concern
themselves with nothing but their own individual material satisfactions.
If only we can better inform our practice, in the materialist sense, by
getting better to know ourselves, our needs, our dependencies on one
another, we stand at least a chance of finding how in practice to
cultivate all the higher human capacities, the things of the spirit.
3
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
I. DIALECTICS VERSUS METAPHYSICS
The materialist approach, as recommended by Marxism, has to be
dialectical . While opposing “materialism” to “idealism”, Marx and
Engels opposed “dialectics” to what they called “metaphysics”. This
means that the necessary approach for working out informative theory
is that of materialist dialectics — in opposition to the idealist error of false
abstraction, and also to the sort of error denoted by the word “meta-
physics”.
In several passages of his writings Engels said what he meant- by
“metaphysics”, or the metaphysical way of thinking, and by “dialec-
tics” in contrast to “metaphysics”. Although the account with which
Dr. Popper has favoured us of what “dialectics” means in Marxist
philosophy supposes that what Engels meant was something entirely
different from what he said, I shall continue to assume that Engels
nevertheless meant what he said — including what he said in those
passages where he said what he meant.
“The metaphysical mode of thought,” wrote Engels in Anti-
Duhring (Chapter i), consists in “the habit of considering objects and
processes in isolation, detached from the whole vast interconnection
of things; and therefore not in their motion, but in their repose; not as
essentially changing, but as fixed constants. . . .” Thus “in considering
individual things it loses sight of their connections ; in contemplating
their existence it forgets their coming into being and passing away;
in looking at them at rest it leaves their motion out of account. ...”
In opposition to metaphysics, he continued, the dialectical way of
thinking considers things “in their interconnection, in their sequence,
their movement, their birth and their death”.
As so defined, metaphysics consists in failure properly to connect. And
dialectics, on the other hand, consists in properly tracing out connections.
Strictly speaking, Engels’ addition of “sequence, movement, birth
and death” to “interconnection” was redundant and unnecessary —
a mere labouring of the point, done perhaps (though done in vain) for
the benefit of those who study dialectics at mad tea parties where points
are not always very clear. For quite evidently, if one fails to take
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
6 1
account of “sequences, movements, births and deaths”, one thereby
“loses sight” of an essential element in “the whole vast intercon-
nection”.
To study “interconnections” is, therefore, a sufficient definition of
the dialectical approach. So Engels, at the head of the chapter on
“Dialectics” in Dialectics of Nature (Chapter 2), wrote that the study
of the laws or principles governing the dialectical approach, and the
dialectical understanding of the real world, should “be developed as
the science of interconnections, in contrast to metaphysics”.
Some may complain that in thus opposing “dialectics” to “meta-
physics” Engels created confusions by using the latter word in a
different sense from that in which it has often been used by other
writers, both before and since. He used it in fact in a sense in which
it was quite commonly used in Germany at his time, and which
was employed by Hegel. And as he did explain quite clearly, and
certainly more clearly than other German writers did, what this sense
was, there is no good reason for finding his meaning obscure. By
contrast, the other senses in which some philosophers have used the
word “metaphysics” do leave a lot to be desired by way of clarification.
In the contemporary literature of would-be scientific philosophy,
for example, the word seems often to stand for any doctrine that the
particular philosopher disagrees with — and especially for any doctrine
which says that the real world is other than it seems to be, and that
the true nature of reality cannot be discovered by observation and
experiment but only by pure reason. Of course, the dialectical mate-
rialist approach agrees with that of these other philosophers in finding
such doctrines unacceptably “metaphysical”; but it finds many of
their own doctrines equally so. What it objects to alike in their own
“metaphysics” and in the “metaphysics” to which they are opposed
is the failure to connect “appearance” and “reality”, or the data of sense
and the circumstances they reflect. Those whom many contemporary
philosophers call “metaphysicians” consider “reality” as something
quite separate from its “appearance”; but the “anti-metaphysical”
philosophers consider the appearances in isolation and take them to be
the complete reality.
At the same time, it should perhaps be admitted that, if we take
into account how the term “metaphysics” originated long ago, the
subsequent use made of this term to denote the antithesis of dialectics
can be regarded as somewhat unfortunate. In its original use, the word
“metaphysics”, which is Greek in derivation and means “after physics”,
62
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
was the title given by the editors of the manuscripts of Aristotle to that
philosopher’s treatise on what he called “being as being”. They gave
this treatise that title for the simple reason that in their arrangement
of his works it came next after his treatise on physics. It was largely as
a result of the discredit into which Aristotle fell at the start of the
modern age that the word subsequently acquired a perjorative signi-
ficance, and was used to denote any sort of philosophical discourse
which combines obscurity of expression with a priori reasoning. But
the treatise of Aristotle to which the title was given was in fact a
treatise about the universal interconnections of things, investigating
in particular the connections between “substance” and “form”, and
“potentiality” and “actuality”. To be fair to Aristotle, therefore, his
“metaphysics” can properly be regarded as one of the first systematic
essays in dialectics. So far from being guilty of the fallacy of meta-
physics in the sense defined by Engels, that is to say, considering things
apart from their connections, he sought to show how things must be
understood in their connections And so if by “metaphysics” we were
to mean anything which follows up Aristotle’s original treatise, then
we would have to call any general statement of principles of dialectics
“metaphysics”.
In view of all this, and of the ambiguities attaching to the uses of
the word “metaphysics”, one might well wish to employ some other
word to denote the mode of thought to which Engels opposed dialec-
tics — and the simple expression “undialectical” at once presents itself.
However, after its employment for more than a century in the sense
defined by Engels, the word “metaphysics” has become so firmly
entrenched in the discussion of dialectics that Humpty Dumpty
himself could perhaps not now hope to press any other word into this
employment. Its use need occasion no confusion, providing one bears
always in mind the definition which has been given of it.
Having described the metaphysical or undialectical way of thinking
(in Chapter i of Anti-Duhritig), Engels said that what is wrong with
it is that it “becomes one-sided, limited, abstract, and loses its way in
insoluble contradictions”. I have already quoted some of these con-
tradictions when making the point that, far from welcoming them,
the dialectician agrees with the formal logician in finding them highly
objectionable. Metaphysics “loses its way” in contradictions, which
become “insoluble” for it. Dialectics, on the other hand, finds the way
to solve them by getting rid of them.
The undialectical way of thinking of things and their properties
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS 63
“in isolation, detached from the whole vast interconnection”, leads to
a formal counterposing of “is . . .” and “is not . .
Thus, for example, considering living creatures, as Engels put it,
“each one separately”, it would seem that they have the property of
being “alive”, which is the opposite of, and incompatible with, being
“dead”. However, if one considers what actually happens to them,
in the real circumstances of their interactions with their environments,
it is quite evident that death is a process. If that process continues long
enough, the animal is quite definitely dead at the end of it ; but during
the process it survives in an intermediate condition. This fact is often
illustrated nowadays at hospitals. Someone “dies”, in the sense that
his heart stops beating and he ceases to breathe, so that the processes of
organic disintegration set in. But for a short time he remains sufficiently
“alive” for the doctors to bring him back to life. Did he “die” or not?
A less dramatic example of the same point is afforded by men who are
losing all their hair. At a given moment, is such a man “bald” or “not
bald”? The answer is that he is “growing bald”, and that if he doesn’t
apply a hair restorer he will soon become completely bald.
Such examples are extremely simple and obvious, and as such not of
great interest. As we shall see, the application of the same principle in
other cases produces conclusions of greater interest. But meantime the
simple examples make the basic point.
What is characteristic of the undialectical or metaphysical way of
thinking, wrote Engels in the Preface to Anti-Duhring , is that it poses
“rigid antitheses” and “sharp impassible dividing lines”. It disconnects.
But the continued investigation by the sciences of how things are
connected in the real process of nature (and of society) means that these
hard and fast antitheses and divisions “are more and more disappear-
ing”. Engels quoted a number of examples. “Since it has been proved
that a body can be brought into a condition in which the liquid and
gaseous forms cannot be distinguished from each other, the physical
states have lost the last relics of their former absolute character. . . .
And since biology has been pursued in the light of the theory of
evolution, in the domain of organic nature one fixed boundary line of
classification after another has been swept away.”
Hence his conclusion : “The recognition that antagonisms and dis-
tinctions are in fact to be found in nature, but only with relative validity,
and that on the other hand their imagined rigidity and absoluteness
have been introduced into nature only by our minds — this recognition
is the kernel of the dialectical conception of nature.”
6 4
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
Hence he wrote in Chapter i : “To the metaphysician, things and
their mental images, ideas, are isolated, to be considered one after
the other apart from each other, rigid fixed objects of investigation,
given once for all. He thinks in absolutely irreconcilable antitheses. . . .
For him a thing either exists or it does not exist: it is equally impossible
for a thing to be itself and at the same time something else. Positive
and negative absolutely exclude one another; cause and effect stand
in an equally rigid antithesis one to the other.”
But once one has grasped the point of dialectics, Engels wrote
(Ludwig Feuerbach, Chapter 4), “one no longer permits oneself to be
imposed upon by the antitheses insuperable for the old metaphysics. . . .
One knows that these antitheses have only a relative validity. ...”
In all these examples and explanations one looks in vain for the
“thesis, antithesis and synthesis”, and acceptance of logical contradic-
tion, so beloved of Dr. Popper and other debunkers of dialectics
(so beloved because so very easy to debunk). Engels’ point in contrast-
ing “dialectics” to “metaphysics” is quite simple, clear, and even
painfully obvious. Metaphysics poses “absolutely irreconcilable anti-
theses”, in the form of disjunctions: “Either it is ... or it is not . . .,
but not both.” Such disjunctions do reflect distinctions and oppositions
which are in fact to be found in the world. But they are nevertheless
“only of relative validity”. Dialectics consists in following up the
connections of opposites, as discoverable in the real processes of nature
and society. In these processes things come into being, change and
pass away, not each separately, but in interaction and interrelation
within “the whole vast interconnection of things”.
When quotation from Engels removes the sort of objections to
dialectics which, as we saw earlier, Dr. Popper lodged (for it is clear
that Engels could not have meant what Dr. Popper says dialectical
materialism means), a quite different kind of objection is sometimes
lodged. This is the objection that what Engels said was obvious, and
so obvious as to be trivial. The erroneous undialectical or “meta-
physical mode of thought” to which he opposed dialectics, is a dead
duck. No sensible person would ever think in such a way, so why
make up a whole philosophy out of “dialectics” as opposed to “meta-
physics”? “Dialectical materialism” turns out to be a mere truism.
The answer to this objection falls into two parts. The first part is
that any philosophical principles which can be definitively established
must always be, in a sense, mere truisms. Philosophies which appear
as revelations of mysteries, revealed one knows not how, are, scienti-
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
65
fically speaking, fraudulent. Valid philosophical points must be capable
of being made “obvious”, otherwise they cannot be valid. Hence
Engels himself said (in Dialectics of Nature , Chapter 2) that, if only it is
properly explained, dialectics must “become as simple and clear as
noonday”.
The second part of the answer is that the so-called “metaphysical
mode of thought” is in fact anything but a dead duck, but is, on the
contrary, widely engaged in with unfortunate consequences. To learn,
formulate and inculcate the obvious principles of dialectical thinking is,
therefore, far from unworthy of serious attention.
It is true that, as Engels said, all successful scientific thinking is, and
must be, dialectical. All the same, to advise even scientists on the
principles of dialectical as opposed to metaphysical thinking is not
altogether the same as teaching one’s grandmother to suck eggs.
For what Engels also said is still worth quoting, even though not now
so true as it was at the time he said it: “The scientists who have learnt
to think dialectically are still few and far between, and hence the
conflict between the discoveries made and the old traditional mode of
thought is the explanation of the boundless confusion which now
reigns in theoretical natural science and reduces both teachers and
students, writers and readers, to despair” (. Anti-Duhring , Chapter 1).
In more abstract and philosophical spheres the confusions that result
from the metaphysical mode of thought, or lack of dialectics, are
evident and notorious. One need not go back to the Middle Ages, or
even to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for examples. The
most up-to-date kind of “logical-analytic” philosophy started off with
the extremely “metaphysical” statements in which Russell and Witt-
genstein enunciated the principles of so-called “logical atomism”.
“The existing world consists of many things with many qualities and
relations”, Russell announced in Our Knowledge of the External World
(Chapter 2). “A complete description of the existing world would
require not only a catalogue of the things, but also a mention of all
their qualities and relations.” And Wittgenstein elaborated this in
certain famous propositions of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus:
“The world is everything that is the case. . . . The world divides into
facts. Any one can either be the case or not be the case, and everything
else remain the same. What is the case, the fact, is the existence of
atomic facts. An atomic fact is a combination of objects. . . . The
object is the fixed, die existent. . . . The configuration of the objects
forms the atomic fact. . . . Atomic facts are independent of one
66
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
another.” Russell and Wittgenstein saddled themselves, in their later
activity, and their followers, with the unenviable task of trying to
solve the numerous conundrums posed by these metaphysical state-
ments.
In the philosophy of science, the “insoluble contradictions” posed
by the metaphysical separation and counterposing of opposites supply
further examples of the prevalence of metaphysics. Thus “particles”
and “waves”, “matter” and “energy”, “determinism” and “indeter-
minism”, continue to stand in “irreconcilable antithesis”. In the dis-
cussion of ethics the metaphysical counterposing of “freedom of
choice” and “determinism” still provides a subject for fruitless debate.
Finally, the metaphysical mode of thought is by no means widiout
its influence in everyday and practical affairs. Take politics, for example.
Engels said that metaphysicians adopt the precept from The Gospel
according to Saint Matthew (5, 37): “Let your communication be Yea,
Yea, Nay, Nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”
When people talk and act in terms of political formulas, and have a
set of labels readymade to stick on to everything so as to judge it in
accordance with its label, regardless of the actual changing circum-
stances in which both parties and individuals are acting and changing
themselves by their actions, what is this but political metaphysics?
In the passages from which I quoted earlier, Engels mentioned some
more difficult and interesting examples than the simple and easy ones
with which we began.
“Closer investigation also shows us that the two poles of an anti-
thesis, like positive and negative, are just as inseparable from each other
as they are opposed, and that despite all their opposition they mutually
penetrate each other. It is just the same with cause and effect: these are
conceptions which only have validity in their application to a parti-
cular case as such, but when we consider the particular case in its
general connection with the world as a whole they merge and dissolve
in the conception of universal action and interaction, in which causes
and effects are constantly changing places, and what is now or here an
effect becomes there or then a cause, and vice versa” (Anti-Duhring,
Chapter 1).
Again: “That which is recognised now as true has also its latent false
side which will later manifest itself, just as that which is now regarded
as false has also its true side by virtue of which it could previously have
been regarded as true.” And again: “One knows that what is main-
tained to be necessary is composed of sheer accidents, and that the so-
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
67
called accidental is the form behind which necessity hides itself”
(Ludwig Feuerbach , Chapter 4).
To get the point of dialectics one need only consider how many
confused and confusing arguments have resulted from such abstract
oppositions as “true” and “false”, “cause” and “effect”, or “necessity”
and “accident”. Fruitful discussion will always keep an eye open for
the “latent false side” in propositions put forward as true, and for the
element of truth in propositions condemned as false. Again, one may
remember the confusion that results in discussion about social develop-
ment when the idea that political actions are the effects of economic
causes is divorced from the obvious fact that economic effects are
caused by political actions. Or again, it is interesting to analyse the
paradoxes and contradictions which accrue from saying that “every-
thing happens by necessity”, where “necessity” is supposed to exclude
“accident”. This last is a typical example of what many philosophers
besides Marxists would recognise as a “metaphysical statement”.
The error in it results from counterposing the concepts of “necessity”
and “accident” without analysing their interconnectedness; or, as some
contemporary philosophers put it, not considering how such words as
“necessity” and “accident” are properly used together in describing
what actually happens.
2. MATERIALIST DIALECTICS
The account rendered of dialectics by Engels makes it quite clear that,
for Marxism, the dialectical approach means considering things in
their real interconnections, instead of separately — and therefore in their
changes (“coming to be and passing away”) instead of in abstraction
from change.
There is the less excuse for Dr. Popper’s making out that “dialectics”
means nonsense about “thesis, antithesis and synthesis”, because the
actual use of the term by Engels and all competent Marxists in fact
corresponds to its customary use over the years (not merely centuries,
but millennia) by other philosophers.
Thus Plato, for example, stressed again and again the need for a
“dialectical” approach, and for the understanding of “dialectic”,
precisely in order to avoid fallacies and contradictions resulting from
thinking of things in a merely abstract way. Indeed, it was just this
emphasis which accounts for the progressive quality of Plato’s thought,
despite his idealism and political reactionariness. His approach was
68
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
the very reverse of metaphysical dogmatism; he was always inquiring,
so that his Dialogues have remained living dialogues for over two
thousand years, and will go on living so long as people go on thinking.
In one place Plato illustrated “dialectic” by asking whether one of his
fingers was short or long, and pointing out that it was short in relation
to longer things and long in relation to shorter things. In other places
he said that “dialectic” consisted in properly sorting out the relations
of likeness and difference between things of a kind. Those who over-
looked dialectic, he pointed out, got into absurdities and contradictions
by posing what Engels afterwards called “irreconcilable antitheses”.
Thus a man who says his fmger is not short but long gets involved in
contradiction when he is made to admit that it is also short, and a man
who says how different things are when he is made to admit how like
they are.
Hegefs dialectic was derivative from Plato’s; and similarly, his
idealism was of the same “objective” type as Plato’s — a resemblance
duly observed by Dr. Popper in The Open Society and its Enemies ,
though he misrepresents Hegel on a scale that makes his misrepre-
sentation of Marx seem almost like scholarly accuracy.
The purpose of dialectics, Hegel wrot c (Logic, 81) “is to study things
in their own being and movement”. And to do this, he pointed out,
we must study the connections of opposites — not simply hold them apart
but connect them together. “We say, for instance, that man is mortal,
and seem to think that the ground of his death is in external circum-
stances only ; so that if this way of looking at it were correct, man
would have two separate properties, vitality and — also — mortality.
But the true view of the matter is that life, as life, involves the germ of
death, and that the finite, being radically self-contradictory, involves
its own self-suppression. ... its own nature is the cause of its abroga-
• >»
tion.
The difficulty in Hegel (as in Plato, but much more so) results from
his idealism. He supposed that concepts or ideas are prior to things, and
that the forms of relationship and development observable in the world
are but realisations of concepts — so that the ways things are connected
are deducible from the ways concepts are connected. A concept is
correlated with and cannot be dissociated from its opposite (as “being”
with “non-being”, “quantity” with “quality”, “continuity” with
“discontinuity”, “life” with “death”, and so on). Hence (Hegel
concluded) in the material world, where concepts are realised, oppo-
sites are indissociable. Quantitative changes consequendy pass into
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
69
qualitative changes, and the hard is soft, the short is long, the contin-
uous is discontinuous, in the midst of life we are in death, and so
forth. The artificiality and fallaciousness of Hegel’s “dialectic” was
due to the way he sought to deduce concrete connections of things
from abstract connections of concepts. Thus in the notorious opening
section of his Logic he claimed to deduce the temporality and change-
fulness of things (“becoming”) from the correlation of the abstract
concepts of “being” and “nothing”: because of this, he said, whatever
has being must necessarily pass into nothing.
In a well-known passage (the Afterword to the second German
edition of Capital) Marx said that with Hegel dialectics was “standing
on its head. It must be turned right side up, if you would discover the
rational kernel within the mystical shell.” Instead of trying to deduce
the interconnections in the real world from the development of con-
cepts, we should try to develop our concepts in such a way as to reflect
the interconnections in the real world. To do that is materialist dialectics.
Hegel (and, to a lesser degree, Plato) provides an object lesson in
how a good dialectical, as opposed to an undialectical or metaphysical,
approach can be turned into nonsense by being combined with ideal-
ism. Materialist thinking, prior to Marx, likewise provides object
lessons in how a good materialist, as opposed to idealist, approach can
be turned into nonsense by being combined with metaphysics, or by
being dialectical.
Dialectical materialism is critical not only of idealism but also
of metaphysical materialism. Marx and Engels included under the
latter heading both ancient materialists, like Democritus and Epicurus,
and modem ones like the French Encyclopaedists — the latter being also
called “mechanical materialists” because of their idea that the laws of
mechanics were fundamental for all material systems. All these mate-
rialist thinkers persisted in thinking in terms of “rigid antitheses”
and “sharp impassible dividing lines”.
Thus ancient materialism posed the antithesis of space, as a sort of
empty container, and matter, as what was to be found inside it.
Democritus put forward the well-known metaphysical proposition,
that what exists is “atoms in the void”. This idea was simply taken for
granted by the founders of modem physical science (Newton and
others), and the subsequent scientific development of relativity theory
and field theory (which connect space, time and matter) was necessary in
order to try to get over the consequent theoretical difficulties.
Again, and especially in modern materialism, matter was separated
70
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
from motion. Matter was thought of as either at rest or in motion, and
some impulse had always to be given to it to get it moving. This led
to the idea that God created matter and gave it its laws of motion, and
then gave it a push so that thereafter material things kept moving.
Again, mechanical materialism took over from ancient materialism
the metaphysical separation of mechanical motion, as spatial dis-
placement of particles of matter, from all those forms of motion
(such as chemical changes, or vital processes like sensations, perception
and thought) which can be described only in qualitative terms. The
former was then said to be the real motion, while the latter were only
forms of appearance associated with it. The metaphysical separation of
mechanical from other forms of motion was thus at the same time a
metaphysical counterposing of appearance and reality. All that really
happens in the world is that particles of matter move and interact
according to the laws of mechanics. This led to the famous deter-
ministic principle of Laplace, that from the position and momentum
of every particle at a given instant could be calculated everything that
would ever happen afterwards.
Such a metaphysical conception of matter and motion produced an
equally metaphysical conception of the relation of matter and mind.
Feeling, perceiving and thinking were regarded as nothing but sub-
jective accompaniments of certain mechanical interactions. Thus, for
example, the impingement of light on the retina causes a displacement
of matter in the optic nerve, and this is “accompanied” by a “sensa-
tion”.
Such metaphysical materialist conceptions were, of course, a gift to
idealists. George Berkeley argued very convincingly, in his Principles
of Human Knowledge, that the conception of matter put forward by
“the most accurate philosophers” of his day (by which he meant
metaphysical materialists) was “abstract and incomprehensible”.
It is not difficult to discredit metaphysical materialism, and then to
claim that materialism is refuted.
In explaining what “materialist dialectics” means, Engels pointed
out how metaphysical abstractions — counterposing one thing or
aspect to another, and not connecting them — lead logically to absurd
and unanswerable questions. Thus in Chapters 5 and 6 of Anti-Duhring
he showed what absurdities arise from the metaphysical separation of
space, time, matter and motion.
How could there be space and time without material events taking
place in space and time? And what “matter” would be left if there
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
71
were no such events? It is as absurd to talk of space and time separable
from the relations of material things as it is to talk of anything existing
outside of spatial-temporal relation, or (we may add) of space relations
independent of time, or of temporal relations independent of space.
“The basic forms of all being are space and time, ,, Engels tersely
summed up.
It is equally absurd to separate matter from motion. To do so is to
talk as though “matter” were some sort of basic stuff or substance out
of which things are made, and which is itself inert though things made
of it will move if pushed. As against such absurdity Engels posed the
principle: “Motion is the mode of existence of matter.”
He then stressed the distinction and connection of different forms
of motion of matter. There is not one single form of real motion
(mechanical displacement), all other forms being mere appearances of
it, but the investigation of the real motion of things involves connecting
together the different forms of motion and studying transitions from
one form into another. “Matter in motion” thus presents no simple
picture of mechanical interactions. Simply to describe mechanical
interactions, far from providing a complete picture of all that really
takes place, is to abstract one single aspect — and then to present this
abstraction as though it were the concrete reality.
“Motion in cosmic space, mechanical motion of smaller masses,
the motion of molecules as heat or as electrical or magnetic currents,
chemical combination or disintegration, organic life — at each given
moment each individual atom of matter in the world is in one or other
of these forms of motion, or in.several forms of them at once”, Engels
wrote. Under definite conditions one form of motion produces
another, and that other does not then replace the first but the totality
of motion of the material structures concerned contains them both.
Thus mechanical motions generate heat, physical motions pass into
chemical, chemical combinations produce living organisms, and so on.
But when heat is generated mechanical motion continues, chemical
systems continue to obey the laws of physics, and living organisms
exemplify the workings of the laws of mechanics. A person, for
instance, who is acting voluntarily and purposively, is not thereby
emancipated from the laws of mechanics, any more than his body
ceases to be a physical structure and the processes in his tissues chemical
processes. All the same, it is not true to say that a person’s life is really
nothing but a set of mechanical, or of physical or chemical, interactions.
Non-motion or “rest”, Engels went on, “only has meaning relative
72
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
to one or other definite form of motion”. Absolute rest, or motionless-
ness, is nonsense. So it is nonsense to suggest that matter may be either
at rest or in motion, and only moves in response to an “initial impulse”.
One can no more separate matter from motion than from space and
time. A body may be motionless in one or other respect, but it cannot
possibly be motionless in all respects. Thus a body at rest relative to
the earth is* in motion relative to the sun; the internal motion of heat
continues inside it; and so on.
In Chapter i of Anti-Duhring Engels explained in simple terms how
the fallacy of metaphysical abstraction arises in the development of
the natural sciences, and how the principles of materialist dialectics
are necessary principles of the scientific way of thinking. And he
repeated it all in Chapter 4 of Ludwig Feuerbach . It is indeed a pity that
the ratde of the teacups prevented Dr. Popper from hearing these
explanations.
In order to understand connections one has first to make distinctions.
There is nothing wrong with “examining things separately”: on
the contrary, it is right to do so. Where metaphysics goes wrong is in
sticking at the corresponding conceptions of distinctions and anti-
theses, and failing to go on to study the connections.
For an adequate conception of things, Engels wrote in Anti-Duhring ,
we must study things in detail. And “in order to understand these
details, we must detach them from their natural and historical connec-
tions, and examine each one separately. ...” So, he wrote in Ludwig
Feuerbach , “it was necessary first to examine things before it was
possible to examine processes. One had first to know what a particular
thing was before one could observe the changes going on in connection
with it.” Science has to start with analysis, description and classifica-
tion. But “when investigation had progressed so far, it became possible
to take the decisive step forward of transition to the systematic in-
vestigation of the changes which things undergo”; and so science in its
later development has become “a science of processes, of the origin
and development of things and of the interconnections which bind all
processes into one great whole”. Materialist dialectics is thus nothing
but a generalisation of principles embodied in all scientific thinking,
when it has advanced beyond the more primitive stage of analysis.
Once the point is made, it is very obvious indeed that no concrete
or complete account of what is the case and what takes place can be
content to consider each thing or aspect of things “in isolation” or
metaphysical abstraction. It must take “the interconnections” into
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
73
account. And when that is done, the kind of “antitheses” and mutual
exclusion of “opposites” which come from undialectical thinking,
together with the resulting puzzles and absurdities, vanish. Dialectical
materialism makes this very obvious and very commonsensical
point.
3. THE CONCRETE ANALYSIS OF CONCRETE CONDITIONS
“The world is not to be comprehended as a complex of ready-made
things, but as a complex of processes,” wrote Engels in Chapter 4 of
Ludwig Feuerbach .
“This great fundamental thought,” he continued, “is in its generality
scarcely ever contradicted. But to acknowledge this fundamental
thought in words and to apply it in detail to each domain of investiga-
tion are two different things.” The general principles of dialectics —
those “laws” which have been so often questioned, ridiculed and dis-
missed ever since Hegel first talked about them — are simply generalised
guiding principles for this application.
And as Engels further said, “if investigation proceeds from this
standpoint, the demand for final solutions and eternal truths ceases
once for all ; one is always conscious of the necessary limitation of all
acquired knowledge, of the fact that it is conditioned by the circum-
stances in which it was acquired”. The standpoint of materialist
dialectics is thus one of continuous inquiry, opposed to all dogmatism
— even though, according to Dr. Popper, the rules or dialectical laws
of such inquiry constitute “a reinforced dogmatism”.
To describe the world as “a complex of processes” is not, of course,
to deny that there are “things”. Engels made this perfectly clear when
he wrote further that, in the processes of the world, “things apparently
stable, no less than their mind-images in our heads, the concepts, go
through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing
away”. The point is that “things” are not “ready-made”, but are
formed, transformed and dissolved in processes; and their properties,
and their relations, are not fixed attachments of theirs, but come to be
and cease to be exhibited by them in the course of the processes through
which they go. If, for example, a stone has the property of being hard,
and the relation of being harder than a heap of sand, that is because
stones get formed out of certain processes — and if one takes this into
account, it becomes evident that no stone is likely to remain hard for
ever, but will grow crumbly and eventually crumble right away.
74
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
Stones are harder than heaps of sand, but sand may get formed out of
crumbled stones, and can also itself get turned into sandstone.
To speak in terms of “complexes of things” is not always wrong.
On the contrary, it is for many purposes the proper way of speaking.
The point is that it is not the only proper way of speaking, but just
one particular way. As I pointed out earlier, whatever we think,
whatever we say, is always based on abstraction . To think and speak of
“a complex of, things” exemplifies one particular mode of abstraction.
This mode of abstraction is properly adopted for certain specific
practical purposes. For other purposes it will not do. And it certainly
will not do for the purpose of working out as complete and concrete
an account as possible of what actually goes on in the world.
Let me take a very fragrant example, the scene of which is a com-
mercial rose garden. Someone comes along to buy a dozen roses.
In supplying this demand the rosegrower thinks only in terms of
“ready-made things”: he views his rosebeds simply as containing so
many roses, some of this colour and some of that colour. In making
up his accounts in the evening he continues to think in this same way:
so many roses at so much per rose, so many labourers working so
many hours at so much per hour, and so on. Nethertheless in seeing
to everything that has to be seen to in his business he cannot always
think in such an abstract way. He has to grow the roses, and in doing
so does not think of them as “ready-made things” at all. His rose
garden is no longer seen as “a complex of things”, but as “a complex
of processes in which things apparently stable go through an un-
interrupted change of coming into being and passing away”. So long
as his only interest in roses was as commodities to be bought and sold,
the “complex of things” mode of abstraction provided the proper
way of thinking of them; it had to be supplemented by other kinds of
concept as soon as his interest was widened to include also the concrete
conditions under which roses are actually grown.
If from this humble rosegrower we turn to the philosopher, Lord
Russell, we can see that his observation that “a catalogue of things”
with “a mention of all their qualities and relations” would constitute
“a complete description of the world”, which I quoted as a typical
example of a “metaphysical” statement, provides also an example of
how deeply the commercial spirit has penetrated the thinking even of
the British aristocracy. This whole type of metaphysics would, indeed,
hardly have arisen had it not been for the development of commodity
production and the separation of mental from manual labour.
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
75
When from viewing the world as “a complex of things” one
proceeds to view it rather as “a complex of processes”, in which things
come into being and pass away in ever-changing interconnection, this
procedure may be described as the passage from a more to a less
abstract way of viewing things, or from a more abstract to a more
concrete way of thinking. I cannot go here into the exact definition of
“abstract” and “concrete”, as technical terms of logic; it suffices to
point out that a statement, B, is more concrete and less abstract than a
statement, A, when everything A says is included in what is said by B,
but not everything B says is included in what is said by A.
The “complex of processes” view is evidently more concrete com-
pared with the more abstract “complex of things” view, for it includes
whatever was included in the latter, and more besides. We do not
think of processes as an alternative to thinking of things, but to think
of processes is to think of things in a much less abstract way — in a way that
more adequately reflects the actual concrete conditions of existence of
things, the real interconnections. Thus whatever received reflection in
the “complex of things” view is still reflected in the “complex of
processes” view. When our rosegrower thinks of rosebeds in terms of
the processes actually taking place there, he does not lose sight of the
separate roses, or of their individual colours. Rather he sees them now
(to quote Hegel) “in their own being and movement”, instead of
thinking of them in a more abstract way, in relative isolation from
their actual conditions of existence.
Lenin, as I remarked earlier, wrote that dialectics was concerned with
“the concrete analysis of concrete conditions”. Dialectics enters into
thinking , and the principles of dialectics apply , whenever we require to make
our thinking more concrete . The dialectic of thinking does not consist
in some artificially contrived performance of passing from “thesis and
antithesis” to “synthesis” (wheoever but a charlatan or a pedant would
undertake that?), but in passing from more abstract to more concrete
concepts. Similarly, the dialectic discovered in the objective world consists
of those forms of interconnection within real processes which the concrete
analysis of concrete conditions reveals , and which are ignored in more abstract
metaphysical ways of thinking.
The concrete analysis of concrete conditions demands the study of
the forms of interconnection within the processes of the world, and it
shows things as interdependent, changing, coming into being and
passing away — and, moreover, as turning into their opposites, ex-
hibiting contradictory aspects in different relationships and entering
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
7 6
into contradictory relationships in which they suffer stresses and strains,
conflicts and transformations.
Thus Marx wrote, in the Afterword to the second German edition
of Capital , in connection with the analysis he had made of the concrete
conditions of capitalist society, that dialectics “in its rational form is a
scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire profes-
sors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recog-
nition of the existing state of things at the same time also the recog-
nition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up,
because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid
movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature no
less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon
it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.”
Of course, Dr. Popper does not like that. He represents dialectics,
instead, as being doctrinaire nonsense. This he does by making out that
dialectics is opposed to formal logic. But it is not opposed to logic ,
it is opposed to metaphysics .
The laws of logic are the laws of consistency. To advocate ignoring or
breaking them is to advocate inconsistency. So of course, if that were
what dialectics advocated, dialectics would be, as Dr. Popper says,
nonsense. But, as we saw earlier, materialist dialectics advocates nothing
of the kind. Its concern is with a consistent account of how things are really
connected. It would be merely moronic to suggest that “the concrete
analysis of concrete conditions’' could be correct only if inconsistent.
When Marx insisted on not only recognising “the existing state of
things” but also “the negation of that state”, he advocated no violation
of the laws of logic. On the contrary, from the concrete analysis of
the existing state of things the negation of that state follows logically.
Marx was in fact very logical indeed. The scandal he caused “to
bourgeoisdom” was due to his drawing the logical conclusions from
a concrete analysis.
The laws of formal logic are of absolute validity, and any form of
statement which sets them aside becomes thereby incoherent and
inconsistent. The dialectical approach, therefore, certainly includes
no suggestion that they may be broken with impunity for the purpose
of a concrete analysis which treats of the real forms of interconnection
of things — as though a statement of how things are connected could
somehow break away from the norms of formal logic. Of course, if
you ignore the ways things are connected — if you ignore, say, those
connections of things which lead to an existing state of affairs generating
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
77
its own “negation” — you will reach wrong conclusions. That un-
fortunate result will not then be due to your respect for formal logic,
but to your disrespect for real connections. If you lack respect for
formal logic you can reach no conclusions at all.
What the dialectical approach does suggest and, indeed, insist on is
something quite different. Practical thinking (that is, thinking to inform
our practice) must always be logically consistent, but the laws of
logical consistency cannot by themselves provide sufficient principles
for its guidance. Formal consistency is not enough; though necessary
it is not sufficient. In other words, simply to say (as Dr. Popper says)
that the task of scientific thinking is to formulate generalisations con-
sistent with observation, and then try to falsify them and, if they are
falsified, reformulate them so as to be consistent also with the new
observations, does not suffice. That must, of course, be done; but not
only that.
Generalisations about a given topic may be perfectly consistent —
consistent with observations, and falsifiable by observations — so that
by formal criteria there is nothing wrong with them; but even though
the thinking which employs only such criteria obeys the logical laws
of consistency with scrupulous care, and earns high rating from Dr.
Popper as science on account of its falsifiability, it is still hopelessly
inadequate for all but the most limited purposes of informing practice,
because it is still so “one-sided, limited and abstract”. In order the
better to inform our practice we must formulate generalisations which
are not only consistent with observation, and falsifiable, but contribute
to the concrete analysis of the conditions observed.
Plenty of examples can be found of one-sided abstract generalisa-
tions, which illustrate also their obvious limitations. Such generalisa-
tions abound nowadays especially on social topics. Take, for example,
generalisations about the workings of the capitalist economy — which
are intended not only as descriptions of how things go, but also as
practical guidance for the direction of economic affairs, or for taking
advantage of economic circumstances for purposes of profit. What was
formerly called “the dismal science” of economics formulates such
generalisations, correlating all manner of observational variables in
the most scientifically complicated fashion, basing it all on statistical
inquiries, and correcting the generalisations whenever (as frequently
happens) they are falsified. These generalisations satisfy the formal
criteria of being based on systematic observations, being consistent
with the observations, and being falsifiable by other observations.
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
78
They tell us that when wages go up in excess of productivity such and
such results tend to happen — and so on, and so on. Today in Britain
such information is useful for persons trying to vet wage claims on
behalf of the Prices and Incomes Board, or in the U.S.A. to establish
Federal guide-lines on wages. But for the purposes of trying to find
out how to organise human society to satisfy human needs, they are
inadequate. For they just take the existing economic relations for
granted, and describe how they work, without showing how they
arose, develop and may be changed.
I11 the Afterword to the second German edition of Capital Marx
quoted what he called a “striking and generous” account of his
method of investigating economic processes written by a reviewer in
the European Messenger of St. Petersburg. Marx investigated economic
phenomena, said this reviewer, not only “in so far as they have a
definite form and mutual connection within a given historical period.
Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their
development, i.e. of their transition from one form into another, from
one series of connections into a different one. This law once discovered,
he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social
life.” “What else is he picturing”, Marx commented, “but the dialec-
tical method?” This method enjoins the concrete analysis of concrete
conditions, and studies things in their real interconnections, in the
processes in which they come into being and change, instead of being
content with merely noting certain phenomena in abstraction from
the processes in which they actually come into being.
The concrete analysis of concrete conditions has to be not only
formally consistent, derived from observations and falsifiable by
observations, but consonant with the principles of dialectics. It must
comprehend the world “not as a complex of ready-made things but
as a complex of processes”; it must not “in considering individual
things lose sight of their connections”, or “in contemplating their
existence forget their coming into being and passing away”; it must
not “be imposed upon by the antitheses insuperable for the old meta-
physics”, and must not simply note “the two poles of an antithesis”
but also their inseparable connection ; it must not in noting qualitative
changes overlook their quantitative basis, nor in measuring quanti-
tative changes ignore their qualitative consequences; it must not in
dealing with one aspect of a relationship deny a contradictory aspect;
it must, in short, always “study things in their own being and move-
ment”.
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
79
As I have pointed out, the one-sided abstract type of generalisation
is perfectly adequate for certain limited purposes. For example, if you
are a tradesman interested in things solely as commodities, it is adequate
for your purposes to ignore the processes in which things come into
being and cease to be. But for other purposes this will not do.
It is a striking characteristic of the modern development of the
sciences, that the natural sciences, which are required to serve pro-
duction, have had to give up the more limited kind of generalisation
and investigate the dialectic of nature. For example, the biological
sciences began by simply distinguishing the different characteristics
of living species and noting how one characteristic is generally correlated
with another — how horns and hoofs always go with a vegetarian diet,
the frequencies with which the characteristics of parents are reproduced
in their offspring, and so on. But they passed from this type of investi-
gation to investigating how species evolve in interaction with en-
vironments, how living organisms are built of cells and their life
consists of the disintegration and renewal of cells, and how the pro-
cesses of heredity work. In this, said Engels, in the Preface to Anti-
Duhring, “there could be no question of building the laws of dialectics
into nature, but of discovering them in it and evolving them from it” ;
and in Chapter i : “Nature is the test of dialectics, and it must be said
for modern natural science that it has furnished extremely rich and
daily increasing materials for this test, and has thus proved that in the
last analysis nature’s process is dialectical and not metaphysical/ *
The revolution which Marxism introduced into the social sciences was
the same as that which took place in the natural sciences — the passage from
abstract limited generalisation to dialectics , the concrete analysis of concrete
conditions . But Marxism is not officially recognised by the capitalist
scientific establishment. And so in the officially recognised social
sciences the more limited type of generalisation has remained pre-
dominant. The practical reason for this contrast is not hard to guess.
The Marxist analysis reveals the capitalist system in a light in which
the successful bourgeoisie is not willing to see it, whereas more limited
and abstract generalisations about costs, prices, wages, productivity,
investment, and so on, provide them with sufficient information about
its workings for their own profit-making purposes.
Thus the same methodology which has paid off in the natural sciences is
officially considered quite uncalled for in the social sciences. Theories, like
those of Dr. Popper, which formulate “criteria” for science simply and
solely in terms of consistency and falsifiability, make out that limited
8o
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
and abstract generalisations are fully scientific. It then requires only a
little ingenuity (or shall I say sophistry?) to talk about “reinforced
dogmatism” and to make out that anything less limited and abstract
is unscientific. Such limited criteria fulfil an extra-scientific function —
they duly uphold the prejudices of the establishment.
In writing about Adam Smith, in Theories of Surplus Value , Marx
remarked that Smith adopted two distinct lines of inquiry, which he
never connected together. On the one hand, he “traces the inner
comiection between the economic categories — or the hidden structure
of the bourgeois economic system”. On the other hand, he was content
with “only describing . . . the external phenomena”. But this second
line of inquiry was enough to satisfy “the man who is preoccupied and
interested from a practical point of view in the process of bourgeois
production”.
The subsequent “vulgar” bourgeois economists developed only the
second line of inquiry. Marx himself, following Ricardo, developed
the first. And doing so, he also connected “the hidden structure” with
“the external phenomena”. Writing to Engels (April 30, 1868), he
claimed that, at the conclusion of his analysis, “we have arrived at the
forms of appearance which serve as the starting point in the vulgar
conception. ... But from our point of view the thing is now seen
differently. The apparent movement is explained.”
The same sort of development of two lines of inquiry can be seen
in political theory. Political philosophers like Hobbes and, later, Hegel
worked out “a theory of the state”. Others (and one source of their
inspiration will be found in the political essays of David Hume)
considered such theories purely speculative and contented themselves
with “only describing the external phenomena”. This, to do them
justice, they did with accuracy and care. They analysed, classified and
minutely described different forms of state institution and different
departments of state function. But the Marxist theory of the state again
followed the first line of inquiry, theorising about “the inner comiec-
tion”. Briefly, it connects the development of states, and of state insti-
tutions and state functions, with the development of class divisions
and class struggles.
According to Hegel, the state is “the realisation of the Moral Idea
on ear tli”. This is an idealist theory, employing false abstraction,
incapable of empirical verification or falsification. So it has been very
properly rejected by those who consider it better only to describe what
states actually look like. The Marxist theory of the state, on the other
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
8l
hand, is a scientific and materialist theory, subject to the test of whether
historical events confirm it or otherwise. For it investigates and verifies
“the inner connection” in such a way that “the apparent movement is
explained”.
Many studies by non-Marxist political scientists in Britain and the
U.S.A. are content today with no more than describing British and
U.S. state institutions, for example, and how they work — adding
eulogies in their praise together with some suggestions for their
improvement. Marxist analysis takes all the facts into account, and
duly displays them, but then explains how the state institutions are
the means by which the social dominance of monopoly capital is
maintained. That is a fact too. But when this “inner connection” is
traced, as Marx said, “the diing is seen differently”. The eulogies begin
to sound a little hollow, the suggestions for improvement become
rather more sweeping.
In general, if you accept existing economic relations and the
existing political power structure as unchangeable, then abstract and
limited generalisations about economic phenomena and state institu-
tions are all that you practically require, and you will have no use for
dialectics. If, on the other hand, you are practically interested in
changing economic relations and the political power structure, you
are compelled to replace such abstract generalisations by a more
concrete analysis of the concrete conditions in which you live. You
have resort to dialectics.
4. THE DIALECTICAL MATERIALIST THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
The passage from more abstract to more concrete concepts, or concrete
analysis of concrete conditions (in which materialist dialectics consists,
and the principles governing which are the principles or laws of dia-
lectics) is, viewed from the point of view of the development of human
knowledge, a passage from knowing only “the forms of appearance”
to the discovery of “inner connection” and “hidden structure”. It is
also a passage from knowledge useful only from the limited point of
view of managing things as they are, to knowledge of how to change
things.
And so Lenin, in his encyclopaedia article on Karl Marx , observed
that “dialectics, as understood by Marx, includes the theory of know-
ledge, studying and generalising the origin and development of
knowledge, the transition from non-knowledge to knowledge.”
82
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
In considering questions about knowledge, and how to obtain and
develop it, it is very important indeed to make clear that “to know”
is not the same as to be “absolutely sure”. This can be put, initially,
as a rather obvious point about the normal use of words. If “knowing”
were synonymous with “being absolutely sure”, it would follow that
we “know” hardly anything at all. I would then “know” that two
plus two equals four, and that I myself exist, but not much else. This,
however, is not what we generally mean by ‘‘know”. For what we
generally mean by “knowing” is something capable of development ,
whereas “being absolutely sure” is not capable of development. One
is either possessed of absolute surety or else one is not. There is no
development of it from being “less absolutely” sure to “more ab-
solutely” sure. Hence what we generally mean by “knowing”, and
what it is interesting and important to study, is (as Lenin said) the
process of knowing, “the transition from non-knowledge to know-
ledge” — from not knowing at all to knowing a bit, and then to
knowing better. What counts as “knowing” in this process is certainly
not identifiable with “being absolutely sure”, and only very excep-
tionally ends in surety.
What we call “knowledge” must also be distinguished from “true
belief”. If, for example, there is life on Mars, the belief that there is
life on Mars is true belief. But at the same time we certainly, as yet,
know nothing of the matter. True belief only becomes knowledge
when backed by some kind of investigation and evidence. Some of our
beliefs may be true and others false, but we only start getting to know
which are true and which are false when we undertake forms of syste-
matic investigation.
In investigating and gathering evidence we are devising tests of the
truth or falsity of beliefs or ideas, or of how far they are true. For
nothing can count as “knowledge” except in so far as it has been
properly tested. An essential part of the business of knowing is, there-
fore, the devising of appropriate methods of investigation and test.
What comes of the process of knowing would, then, be better
described by such a phrase as “getting to know” than by unqualified
“knowing” — for it seldom if ever reaches finality about anything, and
contains few if any guarantees against error. The sort of tests we can
devise are not final tests. To say we have got to know about something
is not to say that our ideas about it have been finally certified as either
true or complete, for the methods of investigation and test generally
preclude such finality.
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS 83
A great many philosophers, however, have supposed that we could
not get to know about anything at all unless there were something we
were sure about to start with. They have been unable to see how we
can get to know without ever being sure. They have supposed, on the
contrary, that whatever we know must be somehow or other based on,
or deducible from, something we are sure about. We must begin by
finding something we can be sure about — only so can knowledge
develop.
As a result, there have been two sorts of theory of knowledge,
both of which are wrong. On the one hand, philosophers have posited
“first principles”, or indubitable “data”, which they claim to be sure
about, and have then deduced all sorts of queer consequences from
these and declared: “This is what we really know, the world must
really be like this!” On the other hand, other philosophers have
stressed human fallibility, and because they can find little they can be
sure about have concluded that we “really know” hardly anything at
all.
A grand source of error in the theory of knowledge has thus been
the covert idea that knowledge must always begin from something we
are sure about; and that to .discover, therefore, whether we do or do
not know something we think we know, it is necessary to find whether
or not our belief in it is based on some form of certainty. But on the
contrary, as Lenin said (setting forth the ideas of Marx about materialist
dialectics), knowing, or getting to know, is a process in which there
occurs “the transition from non-knowledge to knowledge”. The
process of knowing does not consist in the transition from being sure
about one thing to drawing conclusions about another thing, but from
not knowing about something, or being totally ignorant of it, to
getting to know something about it.
Knowledge and ignorance are opposites. There are some things we
do know something about, and other things we do not know anything
about. And the process of getting to know is the transition from not
knowing to knowing, and not simply from knowing something to
knowing something else. It illustrates, therefore, the general dialectical
principle of “the unity of opposites”. But in the theory of knowledge
nearly all philosophers have failed to appreciate this dialectic, and un-
wittingly adopted the metaphysical procedure of posing “rigid anti-
theses” and “sharp impassible dividing hues”. They have opposed
“not knowing” to “knowing”, and supposed that knowing cannot
come from not knowing, but that, on the contrary, whatever we get
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
84
to know must be derived, somehow or other, from something we
knew initially.
The route from not knowing to knowing is found in human practice .
And if philosophers have not been able to discern. this route, that is
because they have failed to notice the role of practice in the process of
knowing. “In practice man must prove the truth, i.e. the reality and
power, the ‘this-sidedness’ of his thinking’ ”, wrote Marx in the Theses
on Feuerbach . Ideas that are formed for the information of practice,
and then developed through investigation and tested in social practice,
are the stuff of knowledge. Men pass from not knowing to knowing
in their practical activity of developing their relations with one another
and the external world, investigating the facts and the possibilities,
and testing their conclusions. And in doing this they not only extend
the scope of their knowledge, but also pass from one level of knowledge
to another — from knowledge of particular properties of particular
things, and relatively abstract generalisations about them, to the
concrete analysis of concrete conditions.
Dr. Popper is, of course, quite right in stressing the necessity of
applying tests in the development of scientific knowledge, and in
stressing that none of these tests is ever fmal and that scientific theories
are therefore always provisional. But in concluding from this that all
scientific theories are alike “conjectures” awaiting “refutations”
he is either concluding something which does not follow, or else
using words in a very misleading way to mean something else than
what those words would generally be taken to mean. To know is not
to “conjecture”, but neither is it to be “sure”. Scientific knowledge is
not conjecture, any more than it is final and complete certainty. The
process of investigating the world and testing theories (which Dr.
Popper lumps all together as alike “conjectures”) is the process of
getting to know — of passing from not knowing to knowing, and
from not knowing well to knowing better.
In opposition to Dr. Popper’s simplifications, and in opposition too
to standard approaches to the theory of knowledge which Dr. Popper
himself opposes, we may now try to sum up the dialectical materialist
theory of knowledge in five cardinal points.
First, knowledge stems from experience, from the practical inter-
actions of human individuals with their environments, in which people
form judgements about objects and about themselves, and test and
reformulate their judgements in the course of human practice. It is in
thus connecting ourselves, in human practice, with things and with
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
85
one another, that we pass from ignorance to knowledge, from know-
ledge to more knowledge, and from imperfect to more perfect
knowledge. The extent of our knowledge is always commensurate
with the variety and complexity of our real connections.
The more we do the more we can know, and the more we know the
more we can do. For example, we have found out about how chemical
changes are produced by the combination and recombination of atoms
in molecules, by elaborate experiments, with close observation and
much counting and measuring, and by finding how to produce
controlled changes for ourselves.
Second, while it is individuals who know, knowledge is only
possible in society, through the communication and co-operation of
individuals. A solitary manlike animal, cut off from human com-
munication and lacking language, might perceive, feel and learn from
experience — like other animals — but would lack human knowledge.
The knowledge acquired in human social activity is all acquired by
human individuals — and yet its sum exceeds that possessed by any
individual, and no individual could acquire knowledge if deprived of
all social relations with other individuals. The traditional empiricist
approach to the theory of knowledge, therefore, which asks what
conclusions the abstract individual could draw from his own private
experience, asks the wrong question, since the abstract individual
not only does not exist but could draw no conclusions even if he
did.
Thus even the most elementary human knowledge differs in kind
from the learning from experience of which other animals are capable.
It differs because human individuals communicate what they observe
and learn, by means of human language. To acquire even the most
elementary store of human knowledge you have to learn to speak, and
none of it could exist unless human individuals communicated. We
find things out and test our conclusions together, in communication,
and not each one separately.
Third, knowledge passes from affirmation to negation and back to
affirmation, from the particular to the general and back to the parti-
cular, and from the abstract to the concrete and back to the abstract.
Thus in confirming that a tiling has a certain property we pass to
the conclusion that it has not got some other property. This makes the
affirmation more definite. But in then testing it in relation to the
negative conclusion we are able both to correct and amplify the
original theory. This comprises the scientific procedure of “falsifi-
86
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
cation” which Dr. Popper correctly thinks so essential in the develop-
ment of knowing.
For example, if a certain substance is a gas it follows that it is not a
liquid. But if the proposition that it is not a liquid is thoroughly tested,
it will be found that in certain conditions it becomes a liquid. Hence
the original statement that it is a gas is corrected, and replaced by the
amplified statement that it is a gas under certain normal conditions of
temperature and pressure.
Further, in finding out something about each of some set of parti-
cular things or events we pass to generalised conclusions about things
or events of that kind, test these conclusions, and then apply them back
again to the particular cases — so that our knowledge of the latter
becomes more generalised, and what we have to say about them is
more than we could originally discover by examining each separately.
For example, it was discovered that whenever burning takes place
there is oxidisation. From this the generalised conclusion was reached
that burning is a chemical process in which oxygen is consumed.
As a consequence, to say that something is burning is made to say
more than simply that certain recognisable effects are being produced —
it says that a definite kind of process is taking place, which could not
take place except in an environment containing oxygen.
And further, we begin with abstractions. To get to know about
things we must first examine them separately, and consider certain
of their properties and certain of their relations in abstraction or
detachment from the totality of the interconnections of things in the
processes that actually go on in the world. From the relatively abstract
conclusions thus established we go on to investigate the intercon-
nections, to attempt the concrete analysis of concrete conditions. For
this purpose we form theories about the processes in which particular
things come into being. We ask how it is that things come to exhibit
given properties and to enter into given relationships, and how it is
that they come to change their properties and relationships, and to
cease to be and give place to other tilings. We undertake new investi-
gations in order to arrive at such theories, and test them in renewed
investigation. Finally, we then reformulate our conclusions about
separate things and separate relationships in the light of our more
concrete analysis of the conditions of their existence. And in doing
that we at one and the same time correct the abstract ideas we started
with and further test and, if need be, revise our theories.
For example, to find out how Britain is governed we must first
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
87
examine the actual institutions — how they are constituted, and what
the persons who administer them do. We must establish such facts as
that there is a monarch, and discover what the Queen actually does.
From this we may pass to a more concrete analysis and formulate (as
was mentioned earlier) the theory that existing institutions of govern-
ment are adapted to the function of preserving the dominance of
monopoly capital. After that we shall have something more to say
about the Queen than was comprised in the original observation of her
behaviour — we shall have more to say than that she attends race
meetings, confers honours, has a guaranteed income, and signs Bills.
Fourth, because knowing consists in the passage from not knowing
to knowing, knowledge is always limited, partial, relative and subject
to correction.
It is limited by the limits of the connections from which it springs.
What is known is incomplete even in relation to its immediate object.
Knowledge is limited by the conditions under which it was established,
and is not only Fable to be added to, but to be corrected when more is
known.
Thus one should never say, without qualification, “This textbook
summarises knowledge of the subject”, but rather, “It summarises
knowledge so far as it has been won by using certain techniques in
certain circumstances”. Consequently most scientific textbooks have
to be periodically revised, and old ones replaced by new, not because
their authors made mistakes but because knowledge has itself changed.
At the same time, knowledge is limitless in the sense that, whatever
the limits resulting from the particular conditions in which we passed
from not knowing to knowing, the discovery of new techniques and
establishment of new connections may overcome them. Limits there
always are, but no limit is finally known to be the final limit. The
known is bounded by the unknown, but not by the unknowable.
Lastly, we can pass from knowing more and more about the pro-
cesses which go on in the world, including our own individual and
social life, to formulating the general principles or laws which have to
be applied in and are exemplified by all knowledge, or genuine in-
formation.
This is the passage from the discovery of matter of fact , all statement of
which is falsifiable, to the demonstration of the necessary , the correct
statement of which, because it is necessary, cannot possibly be falsified.
The principles of logic, which govern consistency of statement;
the theories of mathematics, which are used for counting and mea-
88
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
suring; and the principles of materialism and dialectics, which rule
out fantasy and govern the concrete analysis of concrete conditions —
are of this order.
All the processes we know are of the material world, they conform
to logic, they exhibit number and measure, and they exemplify those
forms of interconnection which we sum up as “dialectics”. That this
is so, we learn from getting to know about processes. That it must be
so, is to be demonstrated by the tests applied in the development of
logical, mathematical and dialectical materialist theory. In the develop-
ment of such theory we are at one and the same time working out rules
and criteria for the management of practical information, and testing
the correctness and adequacy with which such rules and criteria are
formulated.
5. REINFORCED DOGMATISM REINFORCED
Dr. Popper, as we have seen, regards dialectical materialism, or the
materialist dialectic, as the fountain-head of the “reinforced dog-
matism” of which he holds Marxism guilty.
“Hegelian dialectic, or its materialistic version, cannot be accepted
as a sound basis for scientific forecasts”, he writes (CR. 333). “Thus
if forecasts based on dialectic are made, some will come true and some
will not. In the latter case, obviously, a situation will arise which has
not been foreseen. But dialectic is vague and elastic enough to interpret
and to explain this unforeseen situation just as well as it interpreted
and explained the situation which it predicted and which happened
not to come true. Any development whatever will fit the dialectic
scheme; the dialectician need never be afraid of any refutation by
future experience.”
There seems to be some little confusion in Dr. Popper’s remarks as
to whether they mean that the principles of materialist dialectics are
valueless because they are themselves unfalsifiable, or that what is wrong
with them is that their application leads to unfalsifiable pseudo-theories
— theories so “vague and elastic” that “any development whatever
will fit”.
We have seen already that the second charge is certainly not true.
Undoubtedly, as Dr. Popper says, some of the forecasts which Marx
made when applying materialist dialectic in the study of social deve-
lopment have not come true, and yet Marx’s social theory has proved
“vague and elastic enough to interpret and explain” the failure of
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
89
predictions in all those cases where such failure has occurred. But in
that, Marx’s theory is exactly like any other fundamental scientific
theory. The sort of “dialectic scheme” (or rather, scientific analysis)
which Marx worked out in Capital is testable, falsifiable and subject to
correction and further working out in exactly the same way as any
other scientific theory.
Does Dr. Popper mean simply that general principles of materialist
dialectics, as the principles of an approach or method, have been so
formulated as to be unfalsifiable? But if that is what he means, he is
mistaken in suggesting that these general principles themselves imply
“forecasts”. If, as he says, “any development whatever” will fit them,
then clearly no forecast is implied. In fact these general principles
make no forecasts at all — and that is why no falsification of forecasts
falsifies them.
Certainly, such a principle as the materialist one, that “the material
world is to be explained from the material world itself”, is unfalsifiable,
and “any development whatever will fit”. A particular materialist
explanation of some phenomenon may be falsified, but that does not
falsify the materialist contention that the correct explanation must be
sought along materialist lines. Such a principle as this makes no
“forecast” at all about particular events. It does not compete in the
forecast stakes in the way the theories of the special sciences do, so
naturally the sort of tests which are applicable to theories which do
make forecasts are not applicable to such a purely methodological
generalisation.
It is the same with principles of dialectics. They make no forecasts.
For example, to say that things come to be and cease to be in processes
makes no forecast about when or how any particular thing will come
to be or cease to be. .Someone who accepts this dialectical principle
may make a whole series of totally false forecasts — that will not falsify
the dialectical principle. Similarly with such a dialectical principle as
that which says that qualitative changes are based on quantitative
changes, and that at a certain point quantitative change results in
qualitative change. This makes no forecast about any particular change.
All such forecasts might prove false, but that would not falsify the
general principle.
Materialism does indeed constitute “a sound basis for scientific
forecasts”, because theories not based on materialism operate with false
abstractions. And materialist dialectics constitutes “a sound basis”
because theories not employing it remain abstract and one-sided. But
90
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
principles of materialism and materialist dialectics are obviously not
“a basis” for.forecasts in the same sense as scientific laws are a basis for
forecasts. For example, the law of gravity is a basis for forecasts about
what will happen to bodies in motion. At the same time, it is itself an
exemplification of the materialist principle of explaining what happens
in the material world from the material world itself, and in that sense
its forecasts are “based on” applying the general principle of materialist
explanation. But materialism itself, as a general principle, makes no
forecast. The current formulation of the law of gravity might turn
out to be mistaken, but that would not prove that materialism was
mistaken. Similarly, laws of chemistry are a basis for forecasting
chemical changes, and are themselves exemplifications of the dialectical
principle of the connection of qualitative with quantitative change.
They make forecasts “based on” applying that principle. But the
dialectical principle itself makes no forecast. Particular chemical
theories might turn out to be mistaken, but that would not prove that
materialist dialectics was mistaken.
Dr. Popper has made great play with the words “basis” and “based
on” for the confounding of materialist dialectics. But the basis for
using such words should consist in being more careful in their use than
Dr. Popper seems to be. The claim that general principles of material-
ism and dialectics must be “accepted as a sound basis for scientific
forecasts” does not mean that those principles themselves make
forecasts, so as to be tested, as scientific laws are, by whether or not
the forecasts they make come true. What it means is that to make
scientific forecasts we must study to comprehend the facts “in their
own and not in a fantastic connection”, and investigate the inter-
connections, the changes, the processes. If that is not done, forecasts
may still be made, and some may come true and others not — as
happens with the forecasts of prophets and astrologers; but they will
lack what Dr. Popper justifiably calls “a sound basis”.
The “sound basis” for forecasts lies in the materialist dialectical
approach to investigating the facts. And that means that particular
forecasts are based on scientific theories and scientific laws, which are
arrived at by investigating facts and are tested in experience. Such
forecasts are then based on the investigation, and on the investigation
alone. This applies to all Marx’s forecasts, both those which have
turned out to be true and those which have turned out to be false.
But as Alice found at the mad tea party so we find with the critics
of Marx, the type of exposition favoured by the March Hare and the
THE MEANING OF DIALECTICS
91
Mad Hatter only obscures plain meanings by playing on the more
obvious sorts of ambiguities in words in common use. It is quite
evident from what Marx and Marxists have said and done that dialec-
tical materialism, as a methodology, is far from being either a rein-
forced dogmatism or a fountain-head of reinforced dogmatism. It is
true that “any development whatever will fit the dialectical scheme”,
because “the dialectical scheme” is simply a scheme for investigating
things in their connections and development. But it is not true that
for that reason “the dialectician need never be afraid of any refutation
by future experience”. “The dialectician” is not a man sitting in an
armchair who says “investigate the connections”, but a man who
investigates the connections. The outcome of his investigation stands
or falls by how it will fit future experience, and if actual development
does not fit his theories he must proceed to alter his theories so that
they fit the development — in fact, hje must carry on just like any other
well-principled scientific inquirer.
Always ready to reinforce his refutations, Dr. Popper, immediately
following the passage quoted above, proceeds to admit (as he does in
other passages of his writings too) that Marx’s teaching is opposed to
“dogmatism” and in favour of genuine scientific inquiry. But what of
it? Marxism is still a system of “reinforced dogmatism”.
“Marx’s anti-dogmatic attitude should be discussed”, Dr. Popper
writes (CR. 334). “Marx and Engels strongly insisted that science
should not be interpreted as a body of fmal and well-established
knowledge. . . . The scientist is not the man who knows a lot but
rather the man who is determined not to give up the search for truth.”
In this observation Dr. Popper transfers some of his own confusions
into what “Marx and Engels strongly insisted” — for while insisting
that no scientific knowledge could be “final” they certainly did not
insist that it could not be “well-established”, and while regarding
science as a “search” they did not deny that those who search may
occasionally find something. But let that pass. What is of interest here
is the argument by which Dr. Popper makes out that “Marx’s anti-
dogmatic attitude” is transformed into “a reinforced dogmatism”.
Here it is.
“Marx’s progressive arid anti-dogmatic view of science has never
been applied by orthodox Marxists within the field of their own
activities. Progressive, anti-dogmatic science is critical — criticism is its
very life. But criticism of Marxism, of dialectical materialism, has never
been tolerated by Marxists. . . , Marx’s anti-dogmatic attitude exists
92
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
only in the theory- and not in the practice of orthodox Marxism, and
dialectic is used by Marxists, following the example of Engels' Anti -
Duhring, mainly for the purposes of apologetics — to defend the
Marxist system against criticism. . . . Thanks to dialectic the anti-
dogmatic attitude has disappeared, and Marxism has established itself
as a dogmatism which is elastic enough, by using its dialectical method,
to evade any further attack. It has thus become what I have called a
reinforced dogmatism" (CR. 334).
Here Dr. Popper develops his charge in a series of very sweeping
statements, of which it can at least be said that none of them suffers
from the fault of being unfalsifiable, since all of them are false.
He starts by telling us about the deplorable procedures of “orthodox
Marxists". But if there are “orthodox Marxists" who “never apply
Marx's progressive and anti-dogmatic view of science", that does not
prove that the materialist dialectic which Marx regarded as the principle
of scientific inquiry leads to dogmatism, but only that those who have
become dogmatists have jettisoned the materialist dialectic of Marx.
There have indeed been and there still are such “Marxists". It was
of some of them that Marx made his well known and often misquoted
remark: “All I know is that I am not a Marxist." Dr. Popper can call
such dogmatists “orthodox Marxists" if he likes — it is true that they
sometimes call themselves so. That cannot alter the fact that a “pro-
gressive and anti-dogmatic view of science", such as Marxism ad-
vocates, precludes any rigid adherence to unalterable formulations of
dogmas. And the fact is that in the development of the theory and
practice of Marxism such “orthodoxies" have been regularly and
relentlessly discredited.
“Marx's anti-dogmatic attitude" is acknowledged only in theory,
never applied in practice, says Dr. Popper. Marxists have in practice
so often experimented, rejected old schemes for new, and adopted
theories about particular matters only to revise them, that a more
common criticism is that their entire practice consists in a series of
ideological and political somersaults. But Dr. Popper regards that as
only another proof that Marxism is reinforced dogmatism. You can
correct your previous analysis, alter your mind, change your policies —
and still remain an “orthodox Marxist”. “Thanks to dialectic",
Marxism is “elastic enough" to evade refutation. Marxists refuse to
apply the “anti-dogmatic attitude" to Marxism itself. Whatever
betides, they insist on remaining Marxists.
What is the simple truth of all this?
THE MEANING OP DIALECTICS
93
Marxism has been well described as “not a dogma but a guide to
action”. When Dr. Popper talks about “Marxists” he is evidendy
referring, not simply to persons who accept in theory certain pro-
positions enunciated by Marx, but to persons who contribute to and
participate in the world-wide movement which accepts Marx as its
first teacher. These are the persons who have allegedly refused to apply
“Marx's progressive and anti-dogmatic view of science . . . within the
field of their own activities”.
What characterises and unifies Marxism as a movement (amidst all
diversities and disagreements) is the aim of achieving a socialist society
through the means of class struggle, and converting it into a com-
munist society which will provide “to each according to his needs”
by the employment of advanced technology. These ends and means
of the movement are based on, worked out and justified in terms of
Marx's original investigations of society and its laws of development.
And these investigations in turn were guided by the dialectical material-
ist scientific principles of comprehending the facts in their own and
not in a fantastic connection, in their movement and change, inter-
connection and development.
Obviously, anyone who decides that the principles employed and
findings arrived at by Marx were fundamentally mistaken is not a
Marxist but an anti-Marxist. And as obviously, if a sufficient number
of those who are Marxists could be persuaded into “criticising”
Marxism and becoming anti-Marxists, then Marxism would cease to
exist as a force to be reckoned with, and the whole movement towards
a communist society through the class struggle to establish socialism
would fizzle out. Dr. Popper evidently regards this as a desirable
outcome. So do many others — and they try to achieve it by a combi-
nation of criticisms of Marxism and punitive measures against Marxists,
Marxists disagree, and so resist both the criticisms and the punitive
measures.
Punitive measures have at some times and places been quite effective
(though never for very long). But the same cannot be said of the
criticisms. Marxists never tolerate criticisms of Marxism, Dr. Popper
complains. True enough, they always answer them. I myself am
answering some of them now. This dreadful intolerance of criticism,
which Dr. Popper stigmatises as so contrary to the anti-dogmatic
attitude of Marx himself, simply consists of listening to criticisms —
and answering them. The critics, however, consider we should only
listen — it is just too bad when we answer them back, and still worse
94
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
when we make mincemeat out of them, as Engels did in Anti-Duhring.
To reply to critics, and develop your own point of view at the same
time — what a dogmatic thing to do !
Dr. Popper’s objection to Marxism is that the Marxist movement
has not yet found reason to revise its fundamental principles. What is
so dogmatic in the Marxist movement is that it has continued to grow,
and has not yet liquidated itself. It will not abandon its aims, and it
will not renounce the idea that the means of class struggle are the means
for attaining them.
There have been, of course, a number of people within the move-
ment itself who have proposed to do so — but the movement has gone
on without them. The so-called “revisionists” adopted Edward
Bernstein’s attitude that “the movement is everything and the aim
nothing”, regarding the communist aim as a utopian one based on
dogmas, and the class struggle as a hindrance to the movement which
could get to power more surely by class conciliation. This kind of
“revisionism” has been justifiably described by Marxists as anti-
Marxist. But the reasons for resisting “revisionism” are more cogent
than simply that it is “revisionist”. Why not “revise” Marxism in this
way, or, in other words, liquidate the Marxist movement? Because
revisionists have failed, as they claim, to show that Marxist theory is
based on mistaken principles or that facts falsify it, and because, on
the other hand, abundant experience shows that the proposals of the
revisionists do not in fact lead to the practical results claimed for them.
The good reasons which Marxists have for defending the theory
and practice of Marxism are not dissimilar, to those which, say, the
directors of I.C.I. or Dupont would have for defending the theory and
practice of the chemical industry, supposing some of the shareholders
to object that a judicious employment of alchemy would be cheaper
and easier. By diligent research and long practical experience I.C.I.
and Dupont have found out something about what can be done with
chemicals, and the necessary conditions for doing it. Similarly,
Marxists have found out something about what can be done in society
to satisfy human needs, and the necessary conditions for doing it —
though the complexities and resistances met with in bringing about
social changes are of another order than those involved in bringing
about chemical changes.
The aim of the Marxist movement is socialism and communism,
attainable through class struggle. Marxists have not yet found any
reason to renounce this aim, either as a result of their own experience
THE MEANING OP DIALECTICS
95
or of the objections urged by critics. If they did, or thought they did,
the Marxist movement would stop, and communism would remain
where the critics say it rightly belongs, in the realm of utopia.
At the same time, in order to move towards the aim, Marxists need
to take at frequent intervals a long hard look at the conditions within
which the movement is operating. They need to take into account,
so far as they are able, all social changes and factors of change in all
their complex interconnections. And on this analysis they have to base
the policies pursued at different times and places, and the accounts
rendered of particular situations. The Marxist dialectic is then exercised
not “for the purpose of apologetics, to defend the Marxist system
against criticism”, but to effect that “concrete analysis of concrete
conditions” without which the movement cannot fmd its way.
This analysis fails if it is not “critical”. It fails if it is not checked and
tested point by point, and if it is not thoroughly revised wherever and
whenever circumstances change or experience reveals an error.
And of course it quite often does fail. It is but human to err, and
Marxists often make mistakes — whether through inexperience, in-
competence or dogmatism, or because they simply had not the time or
means to conduct all the inquiries necessary. Their “reinforced dog-
matism” then takes the form (luckily for the movement) of their not
giving up the struggle or becoming anti-Marxists every time some-
thing goes wrong. Thanks to this reinforced dogmatism or, as it
might better be phrased, clear-headedness and high morale, and thanks
to the fact that the movement is so deeply rooted in social realities that
whenever some go wrong others come forward to put them right,
errors get corrected, and when circumstances change changed policies
are adopted to meet changed circumstances.
It was for this reason that Lenin reinforced his dogmatism by
.calling for continual “criticism and self-criticism”. Lenin did, however,
venture to remark, when annoyed by critics who jeered at the mistakes
of Communists from the security of their padded cells in the capitalist
madhouse, that the mistakes we make are like making “two plus two
equal five”, whereas the mistakes they make are like making “two
plus two equal a tallow candle”. When we make two plus two equal
five we soon discover our error and fmd the right way of making
them four.
In the international development of the Marxist movement, each
generation is faced with conditions and tasks significantly different
from those of the last. Circumstances change, and the very achieve-
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
96
ments, as well as the errors, of the previous generation present new
tasks to the next. Similarly, these circumstances and tasks are different
from one economic region to another, even from one country to
another. In this way the “Marxism** of one time is not precisely the
same as that of another time, and the “Marxism* * of one place not
precisely the same as that of another place. Besides errors which are
peculiar to one time and place, the correct analysis, the correct de-
finition of tasks, becomes different.
4
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS
I. THE SCIENCE OF INTERCONNECTIONS
Dr. Popper's contention that dialectical materialism is a reinforced
dogmatism comes from his failure to comprehend that the terms
“dialectics" and “materialism”, separately or together, do not stand
for particular dogmatic theories but for the way of thinking or the
approach necessary for working out non-dogmatic scientific theories.
This applies equally whether the objects of investigation are processes
of nature or of society — for there is no gulf between these. People
are material organisms, and their individual and social activities are
as much a part of the material world as are any other distinguishable
types of material interactions. Dr. Popper is right, of course, in saying
that Marx adopted an “anti-dogmatic attitude”. He is entirely wrong
in saying that to go on maintaining such an attitude demands “criticism
of dialectical materialism”. On the contrary, dialectical materialism is
the principle of such an attitude, and consistently to maintain that
attitude demands consistently maintaining dialectical materialism.
But, it will be objected, is not dialectical materialism itself a theory
— the general philo sophical theory of Marxism? And is not its intolerant
assertion therefore dogmatic?
This objection depends only on equivocation. The word “theory”
is ambiguous, and is here employed in two senses. There is theory in
the sense of theory which informs or claims to inform practice ; and
theory in the sense of statement of the principles to be employed in
informing practice. Scientific theories, religious theories, and also
many traditional philosophical theories, are of the first sort. But the
theory of dialectical materialism is of the second sort.
If the reader fmds this confusing, I can only say that this ambiguity
resides in the customary use of words, and that once it is pointed out
the confusion vanishes. If one wanted, however, to use a technical
term to point the distinction, the Greek prefix “meta-” could be
adopted, and one could speak of “theory” and “meta-theory” (like
those who now distinguish “mathematics” and “meta-mathematics”).
Dialectical materialism would then be called the meta-theory of
Marxism — the theoretical statement of the principles which Marxism
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
98
advocates for the working out of all theory to inform human practice.
But if one nevertheless prefers speaking English to speaking Greek,
one will simply say (as is customary) that dialectical materialism is
the general philosophical theory of Marxism.
As I have tried to explain, materialism is opposed to idealism, and
dialectics to metaphysics. When theory is idealist it engages in false
abstraction and its claim to inform us is a sham. When theory is
metaphysical it is not necessarily an uninformative sham (though it
may be that as well, if it is also idealist), but it is abstract and limited,
in the sense that it considers objects and processes, and assigns properties
and relations to things, only in abstraction from the concrete conditions
in which they come to be and cease to be.
The principles of materialism, therefore, are the general ones to
make theory informative, and the principles of materialist dialectics
are the ones to carry forward informative theory into the concrete
analysis of concrete conditions. And the general philosophical theory
of dialectical materialism is the statement of the principles or rules of
materialism and dialectics. This (like physics or mathematics) is not
something that can be finally and completely formulated once for all.
It has to be worked out and developed.
Materialism expresses what is necessary to keep theory on the
ground and stop it flying away on the wings of false abstraction. We
must also make sure that all sides, all aspects of the concrete conditions
to be investigated are properly related to and connected with each
other. This is the business of dialectics. Dialectics expresses what is
required in theory to connect the data properly, to assemble properly
the various items of information, or to process the information, so as
to make analysis concrete and avoid one-sidedness. To state the general
principles or laws of dialectics is, then, to state those most general
laws of interconnection which are and must be exemplified in processes.
These laws do not state what is going to happen or not happen in
particular cases, but they state th c forms of interconnection in the real
world, which are exemplified whatever happens, and which it is the
job of every concrete analysis to trace out.
Can we discover such laws? Marx and Engels were of opinion,
and said so clearly, that examination of the findings of science does
lead to the conclusion that there are such laws which are universally
exemplified. They were of opinion that such general concepts as
those of “the unity of opposites” and “the transformation of quanti-
tative into qualitative changes” express, however imprecisely in their
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS
99
initial formulation, universal laws which are always found exemplified
in all the processes of both nature and society. That is to say, whatever
process we may consider, the concrete analysis of what is going on
always reveals the inseparable connection of opposite sides or aspects,
the conflict or struggle of contradictory elements, the occurrence of
qualitative changes as a result of quantitative changes, and so on. Of
course, if the concepts are imprecise, and the terminology employed
loose or ambiguous, these are defects of exposition which future work
ought to be able to remedy.
In their works Marx and Engels provided numerous illustrations
of what they conceived to be the correct application of such general
concepts of dialectics, as well as providing explanations (which I have
quoted) of what they meant in general by “materialism” and
“dialectics”. But they nowhere undertook any systematic working
out of the “laws of dialectics” in their generality. What they did —
and Engels especially in the chapters on the laws of dialectics in
Anti-Duhring and Dialectics of Nature — was to cite examples of
phenomena corresponding to these laws.
Engels made the purpose of these examples perfectly clear. He was
arguing against Duhring and others who had said that “dialectics”
was nothing but a farrago of empty phrases. He cited examples to
demonstrate that this was not so, but that the sorts of movements
and interconnections described as “dialectical” do occur. He demon-
strated that such concepts as “the transformation of quantity into
quality” and “the negation of the negation” really are, as he said they
were, “abstracted from the history of nature and society”, because
many concrete examples of such modes of interconnection are in fact
to be found in “the history of nature and society”.
Such examples did demonstrate what Engels set out to demonstrate.
But of course, the mere citing of examples did not and could not
demonstrate the universality and necessity of the laws of dialectics.
Examples can serve to make clear the meaning of concepts, and to
refute criticisms based on misunderstanding their meaning or on
saying that they are meaningless. But no list of examples, however
long, could suffice to establish the universal validity of concepts.
Nor could examples demonstrate that the “laws” exemplified were
the complete laws, that there were no others.
These are elementary points of logic which anyone who discusses
dialectics ought to understand, though some apparently do not. There
is no reason to include Engels among the latter. On the contrary,
100
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
what he wrote makes it clear that he understood such points of logic
very well. And he accordingly stated (I have already quoted this
statement, but now I add my own italics) : “Dialectics is to be developed
as the science of interconnections.”
A science is meant to comprise, one would suppose, a good deal
more than a list of examples. Engels also said that he was “not concerned
with writing a textbook of dialectics ,, ) and that in citing examples
of dialectical laws he did not “go into the inner connection of these
laws with one another”. The “science of interconnections” would
have, however, not only to state a set of laws but show how they
were connected, and it would all have to be worked out and demon-
strated by appropriate methods of formulation and test.
That there is work to be done here was likewise emphasised by
Lenin. In his notes On the Question of Dialectics Lenin criticised G. V.
Plekhanov on the grounds that, in his exposition, laws of dialectics
were only “taken as the sum-total of examples”. “The same is true
of Engels,” Lenin added, “but it is in the interests of popularisation.”
He then stated that the “principal” law of dialectics, “the unity of
opposites”, ought to be expounded and demonstrated “as a law of
cognition and as a law of the objective world”.
At all events, unless it can be so expounded, and ways found of
testing the exposition at every link and every step, dialectics can
hardly claim the status of “the science of interconnections”.
Materialist dialectics asserts “the unity of opposites”, and that there
are “contradictions” in all the phenomena of nature and society, as
universal truth. Examples, as I have just said, may help to illustrate
what is meant, and to show that the concepts are not empty ones.
But they cannot by themselves suffice to demonstrate the universality
of the concepts, or to explain why it must be so. What is required, as
both Engels and Lenin after him stated very clearly, is for more work
to be done on the actual derivation and basis of these concepts, so
as to show why “concrete analysis” should always exemplify,
say, the unity of opposites and the discovery of dialectical contradic-
tion.
If Dr. Popper wants to criticise Marxists, he could well point out
that we have been slow to follow up the very clear theoretical
directives of both Engels and Lenin for the systematic study of
materialist dialectics, which would make it more than “the sum-total
of examples” and develop it as the real “science of interconnections”.
But wanting to make out that Engels was only interested in
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS
101
“apologetics’ * and that dialectics is all nonsense anyway, he has not
thought fit to assist us with any such constructive criticism.
2. THE UNITY OF OPPOSITES
The fundamental concept of dialectics is that of die unity or inseparable
connection of opposites. This has been stated by nearly all who
throughout the history of philosophy have variously discussed
“dialectics”. At the start of the present discussion, when examining
the distinction of “dialectics” from “metaphysics” as a method of
thinking, the point emerged that “dialectics consists in following up
the connections of opposites ”.
The idea that everything that comes to be is the product of the
mutual interaction and interpenetration of opposites, and holds them
within itself, is a very ancient one, being founded on universal
experience. Thus, for example, in very ancient Chinese philosophy
the. world and everything in it was said to be the product of the
action and conflict of eternally opposite forces or principles, mani-
festing themselves in all the particular oppositions to be found in the
universe. Every unity necessarily divides into two opposite com-
ponents contained within it, and development results from the
interaction of these inseparable opposites into which it divides.
Undifferentiated unity would be motionless: motion arises and
continues as a result of “the division of the One” into conflicting
opposites. Something of the sort has, indeed, recently been repeated
by Mao Tse-tung and his followers in China. For this way of thinking,
the existence of opposites and their inseparable connection is the
fundamental fact of the universe. It is an ultimate mystery for which
there is no accounting. It just is so.
It is certainly true that a fundamental opposition is always to be
found in every process or aspect of processes we may consider. For
example, in vision the light and the dark, black and white; in touch
the hot and cold, rough and smooth, hard and soft; in magnetism,
opposite poles ; in all motion, forwards and backwards, up and down,
right and left; and so on. However, in considering such examples of
opposition we would be well advised to avoid the fallacy of false
abstraction into which both the earliest philosophers and some of their
later followers seem to have fallen. Thus, for example, the opposite
terms “light” and “dark” do not stand for eternal and primeval
forces of Light and Darkness the war between which produces the
102
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
phenomena of variations in light and shade. On the contrary, the
opposition between “light” and “dark” is simply the logical opposition
of abstract terms employed in the description of the phenomena of
vision familiar to us in changes of light and shade, and from light
to dark.
In general, any terminology adapted to the statement and description
of changes (or in other words, any language, or any apparatus of
workable concepts) is sure to reveal in logical analysis a structure of
opposite terms. It is a logical necessity. Why is this? It is because to
specify a change one must specify a direction of change — from this
to that. The total complex of observable changes includes many
different aspects of change, each of which can be considered in
abstraction. For instance, there are changes in colour, in shape, in
relative motion, and so on. To specify what change is taking place in
any particular case under a given aspect of change, one must be able
to specify a direction of change, and then that the change is taking
place either in that direction or in the opposite direction. Every possible
direction of change necessarily has its opposite. It follows that
in specifying the changes taking place under any aspect of possible
change, we always find ourselves confronted with opposites, two
opposite directions of change , imder which the totality of possible changes
can take place.
Suppose, then, that instead of specifying changes we are concerned
with comparisons. The respects under which things may be compared
are the same as the respects under which they can change. And
comparisons are the same thing as estimates of what change would be
involved in changing the state of the one thing compared into that
of the other. So of course the opposites of directions of change also
appear as the opposites of comparison. Hence in comparing shades,
for example, we have the “opposites” — dark and light, black and
white. They appear not as opposite directions of change but as
opposite qualities.
The most elementary instances of the principle of “the unity of
opposites” are those afforded by the logical principle that to specify
changes we have to specify them under opposite directions of change
peculiar to each aspect of change. All those elementary examples of
inseparable opposites like black and white, hot and cold, wet and
dry, up and down, north and south, and so on, quoted to illustrate
the principle of the unity of opposites, are examples of the principle
that possible changes go in opposite directions. If, then, dialectics is
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS
103
(as Lenin said) “the concrete analysis of concrete conditions'’, and the
principles or laws of dialectics are the principles or laws which have
to be applied in passing from a more abstract to a more concrete
account of things, the most elementary principles of dialectics are
those concerned with the use of concepts of opposite directions of
change when specifying changes and engaging in comparisons.
These principles are very elementary and seemingly trivial. And
so it cannot but seem something of an anti-climax when one arrives
at them as a result of eliminating false abstractions from the impressive
but obscure and mystical conception of the eternal law of the division
of unity into inseparable and contradictory opposites, whose omni-
present conflict produces all the phenomena of the world.
However, lest it be said that we are reducing dialectics to the
commonplace, we should go on to observe that a good deal more is
involved in the thorough working out of the principle of the unity
of opposites. In this, a great deal of muddle can be created, not only
by false abstraction (such as that engaged in by most ancient and
some modern exponents), but also by muddling up together different
types of example. For instance, if to the examples of “opposites”
expressive of opposite directions of change (which I cited above) are
added further examples of “opposites” such as “male and female”
or “capitalists and workers” or “socialised production and private
appropriation”, then the whole conception of opposites and of their
connection is confounded by the confusion and indiscriminate lumping
together of different types of opposition and of the unity of opposites.
This shows that the principle of “the unity of opposites” is not one
single universal law which can be expressed in a single formula, but a
whole branch of philosophical inquiry which needs careful working out.
So far as it relates to opposite directions of change, the principle
of the unity of opposites expresses only what is logically necessary in
the conceptual representation of changes. Further working out of the
same principle can proceed on the same basis.
I have already remarked several times upon the procedures of
abstraction characteristic of all thinking. All thinking proceeds by
abstractions out of the concrete processes amid which we live, and
then represents them in terms of these abstractions and of com-
binations of abstractions. I pointed out that “all statement abstracts”,
and cited as an example the statement “This rose is red”, which
“abstracts a particular rose from the total environment, and its colour
from the totality of its other properties”. I then pointed out that
104
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
there are different “modes of abstraction”, which are “properly
adopted for different practical purposes”. For example, to talk about,
say, colour is evidently one mode of abstraction, to talk about shape
or size another, to talk about relative motion yet another.
Principles of dialectics come in when we pass from more abstract
to more concrete statement. They come in as the principles of properly
combining or assembling different modes of abstraction in the concrete
analysis of concrete conditions. The most elementary exercise in
abstraction characteristic of our thinking is that of abstracting the
different aspects of observable change and the opposite directions of
change under these different aspects. In terms of these abstractions we
state the changes and possible changes things undergo, and make
comparisons by means of which we state the properties of things and
relate them to each other by comparison of their properties. The most
elementary exercise of dialectics is, therefore, the exercise of properly
combining in the concrete analysis of concrete conditions the abstract
conceptions of aspects of change and of opposite directions of change.
But this is only the beginning of the story of the adventures of
dialectical tliinking, not the end.
“The world is not to be comprehended as a complex of ready-made
tilings, but as a complex of processes.” It will be remembered that
Engels called this statement (which, as he said, is so obvious that it is
seldom contradicted) a “great fundamental thought”. It follows from
it (as I pointed out in an earlier chapter) that to talk about “things”
and “complexes of tilings” is merely one mode of abstraction, adequate
for some practical purposes but far from adequate for others. Quite
evidently, to talk about the complex of processes going on, and to
say how out of it there emerge the various complexes of things which
we observe and which come and go and change in processes, is to
talk more concretely than simply to say “There are such and such
things” — which is true enough, but a much more abstract statement.
Therefore the concrete analysis of concrete conditions always demands
that we should combine modes of abstraction which deal with “things”
and modes of abstraction which deal with “processes”. This involves
rather more profound questions than those hitherto considered.
As the ancient philosopher Heraclitus put it, “everything flows”.
Or as Hegel put it, nothing just “is”: all “being” is “becoming”, a
ceaseless coming to be and ceasing to be. A feature of conceptual
consciousness, derived from the use of language, is, however, that as
reflected in statements the passage of time is apparently arrested. If
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS
105
you make a remark like, for instance, “He came in at the door ,, J a
particular event, a particular state of affairs, is, so to speak, taken up
out of time and fixed in the combination of symbols. However, to
reflect (however inadequately) the actual passage of time amd the
actual spatial-temporal interconnection in that passage, from which
momentary states of affairs, relations of things, and so on, are abstracted
and fixed in repeatable images, it is necessary to say how particular
things, complexes of things, facts and events come to be and cease to
be in processes .
For this reason there are always two fundamental and inseparable
modes of abstraction employed in the reflection of concrete reality in
thought — that mode which, in Engels’ words, produces only an
abstract picture of “a complex of ready-made things”, and that which
then contributes to a more concrete picture of “a complex of processes”.
As we saw earlier, the more concrete picture of “a complex of
processes” includes what was presented in the abstract picture of “a
complex of things”. Evidently, therefore, the picture of “a complex
of processes” is composed by combining with the products of the mode
of abstraction which gives only “a complex of things” the products
of that other and complementary mode of abstraction which gives
“processes”. To reflect concrete reality, flowing in time, we have
therefore to combine these abstractions in the picture of things coming
to be and ceasing to be in ever-moving interrelationship in processes.
It follows that for the adequate representation of concrete reality
there is always required, as a strictly logical or logically necessary
requirement, the combination of what may loosely be called “complex
of things” concepts with “complex of processes” concepts — which are
thus logically paired together. This, I believe, is the rational explanation
of a remark by Hegel with which he introduced what he called “The
Doctrine of Essence” in the Logic section of his Encyclopaedia of the
Philosophical Sciences , a remark so obscure it may well have made Dr
Popper groan (and not only him): “The terms in Essence are always
mere pairs of correlatives.” The truth is, and this is a profound principle
of dialectical thinking, that we must always connect die “opposite”
but complementary and inseparable aspects or features which concrete
reality presents to us — of flow and arrested flow, fluid process and
fixed momentary state, unrepeatable passage and repeatable pattern —
in the concrete analysis of concrete conditions. Hence we get the
logically necessary correlation in pairs of such categories as those of
“property and relation”, “form and substance”, or “quality and
106 TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
quantity”. The first term in each pair is the “complex of things”
category, the second, its correlative or opposite “process” category;
the second the category of flow, the first of arrested flow.
Thus, for example, things are conceived of as having properties
which “belong” to them: and at the same time, when considered in
their movement, they enter into all manner of complex relations with
other things. The “metaphysical” way of abstract thinking just sets
down properties and relations side by side, as it were. There are
properties and (also) relations. On the other hand, the concrete analysis
of concrete conditions (in which principles of dialectics emerge) is
concerned with tracing out how things come to manifest various
properties as a result of the ever-changing relationships which occur
in processes. Thus the properties of things change with changing
relations: what is true of a thing in one relationship is not true in
another, what is true in one set of circumstances is not true in another.
Again, consider the pair of “opposites”: “form and substance”, or
“form and content”. This involves consideration of the way in which
the occurrence of processes, which may loosely be said to constitute
the “substance” or “content” of things, always produces, and is
circumscribed within, certain patterns or “forms”. (Unfortunately,
the terms provided by ordinary language are far from precise and
invariably ambiguous, so that unless we are to embark on a long
discussion in which a whole series of technical distinctions and defini-
tions are included these points about dialectics can only be hinted at
in a rough and ready way; this is the best that limitations of time and
space allow us here.) We find that substance determines form, and
form limits the development of substance. For undialectical thinking,
however, forms are considered abstractly, apart from the processes
which take on such forms — as when, for example, political theorists
analyse forms of state (such as constitutional monarchies, republics,
democracies, despotisms) in abstraction from the processes of class-
domination which are carried on under such forms. On the other
hand, it is equally metaphysical to consider processes in abstraction
from the forms they take on — as though one should generalise about,
say, the course of the class struggle without realising that its character
and outcome is vitally affected by whether it is waged under the
form of a democratic process or of a struggle against a fascist dictator-
ship.
Again, the famous dialectical principle about “quality” and
“quantity” comes in here. Things and complexes of things present to
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS
107
us distinctive qualities — they are of distinct “kinds”, they exemplify
distinct “laws” in the manner in which they affect us and affect other
things. At the same time, in the processes out of which qualitative
differences emerge there are quantitative measurable changes of increase
and decrease, in the course of which the proportion or balance between
various factors is altered. For exam pie, if pressure piles up inside a
boiler while its ability to contain the pressure remains constant, the
balance of forces is altered and an explosion occurs. Or if extra atoms
are added to a molecule there is a chemical change, because the balance
of the molecule is altered and it reacts differently in its relationships
with others. Thus qualitative characteristics depend on quantitative
relations, and quantitative changes invariably lead up to qualitative
changes. To consider quality and quantity, on the other hand, as
distinct and unconnected — to consider qualities apart from quantitative
relations, or to consider quantitative relations apart from the qualities
which accrue from them — is mere metaphysical abstraction.
These sorts of consideration lead to a result of very great interest.
For when in the analysis of specific cases we seek to connect the opposite
aspects under which processes of change and development are to be
considered, we come upon the so-called “dialectical contradiction ”, or
“the struggle of opposites”. As Lenin remarked in his Philosophical
Notebooks (true, the language is rather obscure and it should be
remembered these were only notes which he made for further work
which he never did) : “The condition of the knowledge of all processes
in the world ... is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites.
Development is the ‘struggle* of opposites.”
When we consider, for example, how the properties manifested by
things are conditioned by the circumstances of their existence, or the
relationships occurring within processes; how form is conditioned
by substance, and substance by form; how qualities depend on
quantities, and so on — then we find necessarily and always in processes
of change and development the incidence of “struggle** or “con-
tradiction”. For changing relations destroy existing properties which
nevertheless persistently manifest themselves for as long as possible,
quantitative changes break up old qualities and bring new ones to
birth, and processes break out of old forms which nevertheless, so
long as they persist, limit the development of those very processes.
It is, I believe, along these lines that we can expect to show why
“concrete analysis** must (as Marxism says) always and necessarily
exemplify the discovery of “contradictions**. But before proceeding
108 TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
further we should perhaps at this point listen again to Dr. Popper,
who has, as usual, a “devastating criticism’' to offer.
Generously endeavouring to explain, if not excuse, the mental
aberrations of Marxists, Dr. Popper has accounted for the dialectical
conception of the unity of opposites and of contradiction as follows :
. if we look a little closer into these so-called contradictory facts,
then we find that all examples proffered by dialecticians just state that
the world in which we live shows, sometimes, a certain structure
which could perhaps be described with the help of the word ‘polarity'.
An instance of that structure would be the existence of positive and
negative electricity" (CR. 329).
So, according to Dr. Popper, what dialecticians have done is to
notice that polarity “sometimes" occurs, cite examples of it, and then
turn this into a universal necessary “law" of dialectical “contradiction"
or “unity of opposites". First, as we saw earlier, he made “dialectical
contradiction" mean “logical contradiction". Now, regardless of the
inconsistency (for inconsistencies seem to trouble Dr. Popper as little
as he says they trouble Marxists), he makes it mean “polarity".
But in the first place, many examples of “contradictions" have
been “proffered" which have little in common with the polar oppo-
sition of positive and negative electricity — such as the contradiction
between socialised production and private appropriation which is
proffered as the basic contradiction of capitalism. In the second place,
such polar oppositions as that between positive and negative electricity
do not merely exemplify types of “structures" which “sometimes"
occur in “the world in which we live", and might perhaps not occur
at all in some other world, but types of “structures" which must
necessarily occur if bodies move in space.
Let us look for a moment at some phenomena which “could
perhaps be described with the help of the word ‘polarity' ".A rotating
sphere must have a north and south pole, for there cannot possibly
be the one pole without the other and there must be both, opposite
poles one at each end of the axis about which the sphere rotates.
Similarly, if there is a flow of electricity there must be positive and
negative charges. Where there is motion the description of it, whatever
it is, is bound to involve polarity — if only because the concept of
motion in one direction is tied with that of motion in the opposite
direction. In this criticism of dialectics Dr. Popper has made a double
error. In the first place, he has failed to notice that quite different
types of relation fall under the heading of “unity of opposites", and
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS
109
has tried to convict Marxists of basing their ideas on a confusion of
types of which it is he himself who is guilty. In the second place, he
has confused logical necessities with mere “matters of fact”, when he
supposes that such “structures” as those described “by the help of the
word ‘polarity’ ” are simply “structures” which “sometimes” as a
matter of fact occur, and not structures which must necessarily occur.
It is of importance to make clear that there are necessities exemplified
in the types of connection we discover in “the concrete analysis of
concrete conditions”; and the working out of the general principles
of dialectics means the working out of these necessities . Considerations
about the type of “polarity” exemplified by “positive and negative
electricity” belong to the more elementary part of this, being concerned
with what is necessarily involved in the description and analysis of
physical motions. The necessities considered under the heading of
“dialectical contradiction” involve further considerations about the
structure of all processes, going beyond the consideration of “physical”
aspects alone. Then it is found that it makes not the slightest difference
what sorts of process one is considering, whether they be processes
of nature or of society — the concrete analysis, the scientific analysis
and explanation, of processes always takes the form of the exhibition
of specific contradictions, of “the struggle of opposites”. In general,
the complete account or concrete analysis of processes must always
be stated in terms of “the unity and struggle of opposites”. This is,
indeed, the logical structure of explanation or concrete analysis.
In the case of social development, for example, characterised by the
conscious strivings and clashes of people, the basic contradiction which
has to be taken into account in describing and explaining this develop-
ment is that between the way in which men combine together to
satisfy their needs by their intercourse with nature, and the forms of
their own social organisation. It is on the basis of this contradiction
that there develop the various conflicts and struggles of men with
men — which are conscious struggles, unlike anything that takes place
in nature as distinguished from human society.
It is the universality of contradiction, the universal truth that in
the connection of its different sides or aspects all process exhibits the
unity of opposites, and that all development is die development of the
consequent contradictions inherent in tilings and processes, that
accounts for the incidence of those sudden changes, radical transforma-
tions and breaks in continuity which are such a marked feature of the
world as we know it. As Hegel used to say, the contradictions within
no
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
a given state of affairs result in its eventually giving rise to “its own
negation”.
Needless to say, the word “negation” is here used, as was customary
with Hegel, in a peculiar sense, not to be confounded with that
defined in formal logic, but not for that reason particularly recondite
or obscure. In formal logic, the negation of an expression is obtained
by a formal logical operation — so that one can write down the negation,
according to the rules of formal logic, without any investigation of
what actually occurs. The sense of the word “negation” in which
Hegel spoke of a given state of affairs having “its own negation” is
quite different — for here the negation is not deduced by logic but is
discovered as a result of investigating actual processes and finding out
where they lead. In this sense, a given structure or a given state of
things has “its own negation”, which is on the one hand opposed to
and incompatible with it, and on the other hand is linked with it in as
much as neither occurs without the other — the one issues in the other,
as “its negation”, and the other comes into being only as such a
negation. As Hegel observed, the connection of life and death, for
example, is of this type. The processes of life give rise to death, and
death only happens as the termination and negation of life. To under-
stand life, as to understand death, we must, in our concrete analysis
of real processes, have reached an understanding of this connection.
In general, where B is thus “the negation” of A, we misunderstand
and misinterpret what actually happens in the processes where A or
B occur if we merely consider A and B as opposed and incompatible
without grasping their “dialectical connection”. It was in this sense
that Marx regarded socialism as “the negation” of capitalism.
As Hegel further said, in definite conditions the “negation” is in
turn “negated”, so as to produce a new version of the original structure
or state of affairs. The Hegelian terminology is, as usual, puzzling,
because of the ambiguity of the word “negation” which is used
differently in the context of dialectics and in the more familiar context
of formal logic. But the fact is undoubted. Of many irreversible but
at the same time cyclical processes we can say (as Marx said when he
showed how the working owner of means of production, expropriated
by capitalists, would have the means of production restored to him
when capitalists were expropriated), “it is the negation of the negation”.
In such cases the original condition is not simply restored, it is recreated
in a new enriched form, “on a higher level” — as when the individual
owners of a few simple tools are eventually replaced by the joint
THE NECESSITY OP DIALECTICS
III
owners of gigantic productive powers. In such cases, we will not fully
understand the character of new structures unless we understand them
as the products of such processes, in their connections ivith their conditions
of coming into being , as “the negation of the negation”.
3. THE TEST OF DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM
I shall now try to sum up those very good reasons which Marxists
can find for maintaining the truth, and the necessary truth, of dialectical
materialism, and for confidently seeking to develop it.
As I have tried to show, the principles of materialism and of
materialist dialectics are intended to serve us as the most general
guiding principles for understanding the problems of life — for com-
prehending the facts in their own and not in a fantastic connection,
and effecting the concrete analysis of concrete conditions, in the way
that is necessary for seeking to answer the problems of life.
For drawing inferences we rely on the principles of logic, for
measurement and calculation we rely on the principles of mathematics,
for investigating phenomena we rely on the principles of scientific
method. Our reliance on these principles does not make us “reinforced
dogmatists”. Nor does general reliance on the principles of materialism
and materialist dialectics make us reinforced dogmatists. No, for we
have very good reasons for all such reliances, and the principles relied
on are all great human discoveries which have been and continue to
be tested by the most rigorous tests.
Of course, mistakes can always be made, and sometimes have been
made, in the formulation of principles. That the principles of logic,
for example, are necessary inviolable truths does not mean that
logicians, who try to work out these principles, cannot get them
wrong. On the contrary, the fact is on record that Aristotle — the
first man who tried systematically to work out the principles of
logic — not only did not establish them all, but some of those he
thought he had established were wrongly formulated and were not,
exactly as formulated, valid logical principles at all. The point is that
where mistakes are made, they can be detected and corrected. Methods
of test are applicable in the formulation and working out of principles.
This goes for principles of materialism and dialectics equally with
any others.
Dr. Popper is, then, undoubtedly in the right about the necessity
for finding tests for everything we propose to maintain. There must
112
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
always be tests. And if we maintain propositions without being able
to say how to test them, and without submitting them to test, then
at the best we are mere dogmatists or people of extreme gullibility,
and at the worst victims of superstitions, employing meaningless
formulas as incantations. Rationality, with its implications of over-
coming dogmas, ignorance and superstitions, demands discussion and
investigation, and the decision of questions on the basis of testing the
proposed answers.
It is quite true (as I have said already) that the Marxist movement
has suffered from dogmatists — with a division of labour between some
who loudly proclaim dogmas and others who obediently repeat what
they are told. However, dogmas get discredited, and Marxism is
opposed to dogmatism. To be a Marxist you are not required to
subscribe to anything without reason, not to accept any formulation
as so authoritative that it cannot be modified, or indeed rejected
altogether, as a result of discussion. And considering the amount of
discussion that has gone on, and continues to go on, about the formula-
tion of even the most fundamental principles of Marxism (to which
this present work is intended as a modest contribution), there are
certainly no grounds for asserting that Marxism imposes a dogmatic
uncritical attitude towards even the basic principles of Marxism
itself.
So now we must ask: What are the tests, what are the reasons for
the principles of materialism and materialist dialectics? Dr. Popper
asserts that there aren’t any. I propose to show that there are.
To know how to test the concepts and principles of dialectical
materialism it is first of all necessary to be clear about what types of
concepts and principles these are. For different types of statements
require different types of test. As many contemporary philosophers
have astutely observed, confusions result from taking statements of
one type to be statements of another type; and if tests appropriate
only for one type of statement are applied to another type of statement,
then, as the saying goes, confusion becomes worse confounded.
Not all statements are testable “by experience” in the same way as
are statements of the empirical sciences and, in general, factual or
what I have called “informative” statements. Dr. Popper himself
stresses it. He insists (very properly) that statements which cannot be
tested by experience and which, in that sense, are “unfalsifiable”,
must be excluded from the body of empirical sciences. But he does
not therefore conclude that no empirically unfalsifiable statements
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS
113
are ever to be accepted. On the contrary, theorems of formal logic
and of mathematics, for example, are empirically unfalsifiable. But
that does not mean we should have no use for them. It simply means
that formal logic and mathematics are not empirical sciences.
For example, a physicist having expressed a certain connection
between observational variables in an equation proceeds to perform
calculations from which he arrives at a conclusion which he submits
to experimental tests. There is clearly a distinction between the
experimental procedure he adopts to test his hypothesis about the
connections of physical quantities and the mathematical procedure
he adopts to deduce one formula from another. He checks his hypo-
thesis empirically, whereas he checks the correctness of his mathe-
matics by making sure that each step in the calculation is vouched for
by valid rules of calculation. And the correctness of the laws of
calculation is not established empirically like the correctness of physical
laws.
Suppose that what he calculated should happen does not happen:
this would falsify his physical hypothesis, but not the laws of mathe-
matics which he used in working out his hypothesis. For the latter
are not empirically falsifiable. Here is a very simplified instance to
illustrate this point. Suppose that having put two apples in a box and
then two more I use the mathematical rule “2 + 2 = 4” to calculate
that later on I shall find four apples in the box. Suppose that in fact I
find only three: this does not falsify the arithmetical theorem that
2+2=4, but only falsifies my hypothesis that four apples put into
the box would stay there. I should conclude that someone must have
taken one out when I wasn’t looking.
It may be added that the empirical unfalsifiability of mathematical
theorems does not imply (as some philosophers have assumed) that
mathematical ideas are or could be arrived at and defined indepen-
dently of experience. On the contrary, our ideas of numbers are
derived from the practical experience of counting, and unless we
observed numbers of things and counted them we would never be
able to arrive at the definition of the series of numbers and formulate
and prove theorems of mathematics. But that mathematics is thus a
product of experience and practice, and is used for practical purposes,
does not imply that theorems of mathematics are established experi-
mentally or are falsifiable in experience.
The point is that certain empirically unfalsifiable statements may
yet admit of very rigorous tests. Wrong theorems of logic or mathe-
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
114
matics can be corrected, and correct ones proved. There are highly
developed techniques for correcting and proving empirically un-
falsifiable statements, just as there are highly developed techniques
for empirically testing empirically falsifiable statements. The theorems
of logic and mathematics are types of statement which admit of
proof but not of empirical test, just as the statements of the empirical
sciences are a type of statement which admit of empirical test but
not of proof.
What Dr. Popper objects to, and what Marxists object to as well,
are statements which do not admit of any genuine test at all. These
include statements which involve what I have called “false abstraction” .
These statements are neither empirically falsifiable nor are there
non-empirical ways of establishing or refuting them. It is true that a
great deal of argument and discussion goes on about such statements —
for instance, the debates of theologians. But the trouble with this sort
of argument is that it always, in the last resort, relies on dogmatically
imposed authority. The argument applies tests of a sort, in which
statements are tested by reference to some set of master statements.
But how are the master statements tested? Only by finding out which
master statements are supported by the loudest voices or most alarming
excommunications, or, in more liberal circles, which are deemed most
morally uplifting or most comforting. Dr. Popper seems to be of
opinion, and Marxists who follow Marx most certainly are of opinion,
that the test for whether statements are to be accepted for our practical
guidance lies in whether there are ways of genuinely testing them.
According to Dr. Popper, philosophical theories are empirically
unfalsifiable. One cannot but agree with him on this point, for
empirically falsifiable theories would be subject to the tests employed
by empirical sciences and so would come under the heading of
“empirical science” rather than “philosophy”. Historically there was,
to begin with, no clear division between philosophy and the empirical
sciences, but only a general speculation about “the nature of things”.
As the empirical sciences developed, however, they separated off
from philosophy; and so the division has been introduced between
empirical sciences, the statements of which are empirically tested,
and philosophy, the statements of which are tested, if genuinely
tested at all, by different means. Indeed, the division of philosophy
from the empirical sciences was largely the result of the systematic
development of scientific method, systematically using techniques of
empirical test; certain discussions not subject to such tests were
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS
115
channelled off from the sciences into the separate province of
philosophy.
Recognising this division, Dr. Popper says it is nevertheless possible
“to examine critically” empirically unfalsifiable philosophical theories
(CR 198). Of course, “critical examination” entails criteria for rejection.
So Dr. Popper proceeds to suggest criteria for deciding to reject
certain philosophical theories. These lead to the rejection of all (in
Marxist terminology) idealist and metaphysical theories. We agree: I
have already tried to indicate the grounds for rejecting these theories.
The question has to be raised, however, whether there are valid
grounds for accepting any philosophical theory. Dr. Popper’s whole
stress is on finding good reasons to reject philosophical theories. How-
ever, if the criteria employed in “critical examination” are so devised
that any theory is eventually rejected , such criteria are evidently as
worthless as they would be if there were no criteria for rejection at all.
We require to know not only what makes a philosophical theory
unacceptable, but also what makes it acceptable.
Dialectical materialism (so Marxists contend) is a philosophical
theory of such a kind that good reasons can be found for accepting it.
That does not mean we are against “examining it critically”. It does
mean that we are against the assumption that “critical examination”
is always tantamount to rejection.
General principles of materialism are empirically unfalsifiable. So
are general principles of materialist dialectics. How could one set about
falsifying them? They do not entail any predictions of what will
happen in particular circumstances, and so nothing that happens will
ever falsify them. But these statements are not empty ones (owing
their appeal merely to an impressive combination of words with
emotional resonance, like “The All is One” or “God is Love”, which
will likewise never be empirically falsified). What gives them practical
content is their function of stating guiding principles for formulating,
assembling and concretising information. And it is in relation to that
function that they are tested.
The logical type of a statement is given by the function it performs
in human practice. And principles of materialism and dialectics are
distinguished from statements of empirical sciences, and from
theorems of logic and mathematics, precisely by their logical type and
practical function. In them is discovered the correct form for philo-
sophical, as distinct from empirical, formal-logical or mathematical
statements. And in that form, philosophy, the general principles of
ii 6
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
materialism and of materialist dialectics, can be and should be
developed as a science, so worked out as to be tested at every step and
the findings confirmed.
I shall now try to define the logical type of the philosophical state-
ments of dialectical materialism, so as to characterise them as a distinct
type of statement, and in doing so to indicate how they may be tested.
The object of the exercise is to distinguish them, pn the one hand,
from statements of the empirical sciences, and of logic and mathe-
matics — all of which have their own specific types of test ; and on the
other hand from those statements, made in other philosophies, which
are to be rejected because so formulated as to evade any positive test.
I must premise, however, that I shall attempt this here in only a very
rough and ready way. To go into these questions with all the exactitude
and attention to detail proper in a logical treatise would require much
more space and time than is available here at present.
To distinguish the type of philosophical statements made by dia-
lectical materialism and how they are to be tested, it will be convenient
to introduce one new technical term — category. This is defined in terms
of “mode of abstraction”.
The statements which result from different modes of abstraction
employ different categories; conversely, the different categories we
employ in making statements, or in terms of which we formulate our
information are the products of different modes of abstraction. To
distinguish modes of abstraction is to distinguish the categories wherein
the products of such modes of abstraction are expressed, and to
distinguish categories is to distinguish them as products of different
modes of abstraction.
Thus, for example, to talk of “things” is, as I have said, one particular
mode of abstraction; and this mode of abstraction gives us the category
of “thing”. To talk of “processes” is another mode of abstraction
giving us the category of “process”. Similarly, “causality” is a category
in as much as when we distinguish and relate causes and effects we are
dealing in a special mode of abstraction. Thus to discuss causality in a
philosophical way is to discuss how the category of causality is pro-
perly applied, and is quite distinct from the empirical investigation of
causes and effects. Again, the modes of abstraction which result in our
distinguishing “properties” and “qualities” give us the categories of
“property” and “quality”; and the modes of abstraction which result
in our distinguishing “relations” and “quantities” give us the categories
of “relation” and “quantity”.
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS
117
It is evident that there is and must be a connection between all
legitimate modes of abstraction, inasmuch as they all abstract (to
express it loosely) different interconnected aspects of one and the same
concrete reality. These connections, in their generality, may be
expressed as category-connections. Thus categories are connected by
the way they complement and supplement one another in the reflection
of concrete reality ; and (as noted in an earlier chapter) one result of
this is the dialectical pairing of categories in the formation of pairs of
“opposites”.
In writing thus of categories, I am using the word “category” in a
specialised sense. I am using the word as a specialised technical term for
the purpose of discussing certain questions of philosophy. In everyday
language, on the other hand, the word “category” is often used in
much wider and looser senses, with which I am not here concerned.
For example, we often speak of, say, engineers, miners and steel-
workers as distinct “categories” of worker — that is to use the word
“category” to apply to different trades associated with the division of
labour in modern industry. Thus (like Humpty Dumpty) I am defining
only how I propose to use the word “category” in this present dis-
cussion, whereas both I and other people often legitimately use the
same word in quite different ways in other contexts. However, my
use here of the word “category” is not, I am sure, a mere personal
idiosyncrasy: it corresponds pretty closely to the way this word has
been traditionally used by many philosophers.
What I am talking about now when I use the word “category” is
much the same as what Aristotle was talking about at the beginning of
scientific philosophy when he wrote a treatise called The Categories ,
and as Kant was talking about when ho spoke of “substance” and
“causality” as “categories”. But while I am talking about what Kant
talked about, what I am saying about the subject is quite different
from what he said. For I am trying to express the standpoint of dia-
lectical materialism, which is opposed to that of Kantian or any other
brand of idealism.
Kant said that the categories could be “deduced a priori ”. He said
that they were somehow inherent in the mind, and that far from
deriving them from the objective material world we project them
from our own minds into the world — thus making the world appear
to us, as a “phenomenon”, very different from what it is “in itself”.
Hegel “corrected” Kant only by denying that the mind of “the finite
individual” produces its own categories for itself; he said that the
n8
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
categories are eternally present in the thinking of the Absolute Spirit,
from whence they are all derived — a correction which, one may well
protest, only makes what was mystifying already a great deal more
mysterious.
In saying that categories are products of different modes of abstraction
I am saying the exact opposite of what Kant and Hegel said. I am
adopting a materialist as opposed to an idealist approach to the
question of categories. The categories we employ in stating information
about the world reflect the world we are informing ourselves about.
The interconnections of categories in informative statement, as we
proceed to fit together relatively abstract items of information into
the concrete analysis of concrete conditions, reflect the forms of
interconnection of the different features and aspects of the material
world. As Marx put it in the Afterword to the second German edition
of Capital: “The ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected
by the human mind and translated into forms of thought.”
Statements formulated with such a high degree of generality as to
deal purely with connections of categories, rather than state facts
which come under those categories, may be called category-statements.
For example, “Qualities depend on quantitative relations” is a category-
statement — as distinguished from, say, “The chemical properties of
molecules depend on how many atoms are combined in them”, which
is a statement of fact exemplifying the connection of categories stated
in the category-statement. The category-statement is empirically
unfalsifiable, whereas the factual statement exemplifying it is of the
empirically falsifiable type. It will be seen, too, that category statements
are arrived at by a procedure of abstraction from statements of facts :
the categories are abstracted from the facts. Categories are therefore
in no sense “derived or known a priori”. They are not present in the
mind or known independent of experience or prior to experience,
but derived from or abstracted from experience. They are not imposed
by the mind upon the known world, but abstracted by the mind from
the material world as it is known to us in experience.
The general philosophical principles of materialism and materialist
dialectics may now be typified as category-statements. That is their
logical type, as distinguished from other types of statements. It is as
category-statements that they are of use to us, and it is as category-
statements that they may be scientifically derived, formulated and
tested.
In formulating these principles it has been customary to distinguish
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS 119
“materialism” from “dialectics”. This distinction has its basis in the
conditions of our conscious activity, which create (as I tried to indicate
when discussing “materialism versus idealism”) the distinction and
opposition of “material” and “ideal”. Principles of materialism are
those of the real connection of the material and the ideal. The principles
of materialist dialectics comprise all those further principles of inter-
connection which come to light in the concrete analysis of concrete
conditions. But so far as the logical type of the principles is concerned,
there is no distinction: materialism and materialist dialectics are all of
one piece. To suppose dialectical materialism to be some kind of
artificial conjunction of two logically separable elements is, therefore,
a crude error (an error which has, nevertheless, sometimes been made
in expounding it as a philosophy). Historically, philosophical
materialism and dialectics were separately developed — materialism in
a metaphysical way, and dialectics mystified by idealism. By bringing
them together Marx eradicated the twin fallacies of metaphysics and
idealism, and laid the basis for a single unified development of philo-
sophical principles.
How, then, are these principles established and tested?
First I shall repeat that, as Lenin stressed, they are not to be established
simply by “examples”. Some Marxists do seem to have supposed that
materialism and materialist dialectics are sufficiently established by
citing a lot of examples to bear them out and none to contradict them.
But this is to make the logically untenable supposition that very
general statements embracing category-connections rest on the same
sort of evidence as do the statements of empirical sciences. And then
it is easy for logically trained critics to put Marxists on the spot. First
it can be asked: Have we in fact examined all relevant cases? We
certainly have not. But second, our claim to establish our points by
citing positive instances is bogus. For what would happen if we did
meet an apparently negative instance? If there arises a case where
materialist explanation is lacking (for instance, some of the cases
produced by so-called psychical research) it can be pleaded that the
lack of it is only due to our not yet knowing enough; and if there
arises a case where, say, a quantitative change does not lead to a
qualitative one it can be pleaded that that is only because the quantitative
change did not go far enough. Thus generalisations which claim the
support of universal experience turn out to be so devised (just as Dr.
Popper has said) that any experience which fails to support them may
be dismissed as irrelevant. Principles of materialism and of materialist
120
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
dialectics are empirically unfalsifiable. So it is absurd to claim to
establish them as though they were ordinary empirical generalisations.
To formulate and establish valid philosophical principles we must
engage in that type of abstraction and generalisation which results in
category-statements. And to establish that these statements are genuine
it must be shown that they are necessary in the formulation and assembly
of genuine information. Of course, it is just because they are necessary
that genuine category-statements are unfalsifiable by experience. On
the other hand, many statements unfalsifiable by experience are far
from expressing genuine necessary principles — there are empty state-
ments, statements of false idealist abstraction, and so on.
In scientific philosophy we must, first, abstract the categories
employed in informing ourselves about the world. That is how we
arrive at the content of our philosophical statements.
Second, we must work out how, in seeking a concrete analysis,
we pass from one set of categories to another, and how we connect
them. That is how we make our exposition scientifically systematic
and coherent, and not a mere jumble of separate “principles”.
Third, we must check up that every conclusion is in fact abstracted
from the actual procedures and findings of scientific knowledge, and
is a necessary principle in these procedures, in the sense that they
could not get on without at least implicitly accepting it. That is how
we test our conclusions.
Let us briefly consider in this connection the test of the materialist
dialectical principle about quality and quantity. Scientific procedures
do in fact investigate the basis of observed qualities in quantitative
relations — the principle really is adopted in scientific work. But it is
not a principle which just so happens to be sometimes adopted, it is a
necessary principle. For to investigate the quantitative basis of qualities,
whether successful or not, is the only and necessary way of discovering
how qualitative changes are determined and controlled. To suppose
otherwise would be to suppose that the material processes of the
structures exhibiting qualities do not affect those qualities. And if
that were so, we could not inform ourselves of how qualities are
determined. If, therefore, we are to try to so inform ourselves, it can
only be by investigating quantitative relations.
Philosophical principles are principles of “interconnection”. The
right way of working them out and testing them must, in short, be
such as to ensure: first, that they do relate to the actual information
we possess and use, and are not merely cooked up out of metaphysical
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS
121
or idealist abstractions; and second, that they do state neccesary principles
governing the formulation and assembly of that information.
Is it, then, possible to finalise, once for all, a complete system of
the principles of materialist dialectics? I do not think so.
Aristotle, Kant and Hegel all supposed it possible to write down a
complete list of categories. Professor Gilbert Ryle, the editor of the
philosophical journal Mind , has described this idea as “scholastic”: to
compile “a decalogue of categories” is, according to him, to try in a
dogmatic scholastic way to circumscribe the range of our concepts.
I think Professor Ryle is right. It does not seem to me that one can
say: There are just so many possible modes of abstraction, and these
are the ones. Nor can one say: The totality of forms of interconnection
in the material world comprises exactly these, and no others. Lenin
was apparently of the same opinion when he wrote (in his article on
Karl Marx contributed to a Russian encyclopaedia) that “the indissoluble
connection of all sides of every phenomenon . . . constantly discloses
new sides”.
Hence to assert that there are exactly three, four, or any other
number, of “laws” to which the principles of materialist dialectics
may be reduced, is a mistake. Of course, “in the interests of popularisa-
tion” and illustration it is both useful and legitimate to cite certain
“laws” (as Engels did). But that does not mean that those particular
“laws” provide formulas under which everything that ever happens
or ever comes to interest us is to be subsumed. As for “the unity of
opposites”, this is less one law amongst several than a general pre-
scription for the form that all interconnection takes. But' if one proceeds
to consider, in a general way, the cases of “the unity of opposites”,
there is no end to them; and each case has “its own dialectic”, requiring
its own special study.
Hence materialist dialectics is not a subject which can be completed
by writing down and learning a few (or even a large number) of
formulas in a textbook. And in that respect it is exactly like any other
scientific discipline, whether the empirical sciences or the “exact”
sciences of logic and mathematics. We should not expect ever to
work out a final system of category-statements, sufficient for all
purposes.
4. THE PHILOSOPHY OF IDENTITY
The value of philosophy is not that it tells us all about “the nature of
reality” and sums it all up in a few formulas, but that it embodies a
122
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
continued scientific activity of working out principles of how to
think so as to inform ourselves and, informing ourselves, arrive at
rational judgements about our human ends and the means to attain
them. It does that, and in doing so arms us against idealist illusion
and metaphysical abstraction. Such, at all events, is the value of
dialectical materialist philosophy.
It may be thought, however, that there are inconsistencies to be
found in the way in which Engels, in particular, described the ideas
and aims of dialectical materialism.
Distinguishing philosophy from the empirical sciences, Engels wrote
in the first chapter of Anti-Duhring that “what independently survives
of all former philosophy is the science of thought and its laws — formal
logic and dialectics”. So he very clearly coupled dialectics with formal
logic in “the science of thought and its laws”, implying that laws of
dialectics are laws of thought. But in the preface to the same work he
wrote that “there could be no question of building the laws of dialectics
into nature, but of discovering them in it and evolving them from
it . . . Nature is the test of dialectics.” This implies that laws of dialectics
are laws of the objective world. But can the same laws be laws of
both?
Engels evidently thought they could, for in Ludwig Feuerbach
(Chapter 4) he wrote that dialectics comprises “the science of the
general laws of motion both of the external world and of human
thought”. And in Dialectics of Nature (Chapter 2): “It is from the
history of nature and human society that the laws of dialectics are
abstracted. For they are nothing but the most general laws of these
two aspects of historical development, as well as of thought itself.”
In similar vein Lenin asserted that dialectics must be demonstrated
“as a law of cognition and as a law of the objective world”.
To all this it may be objected, first, that there seems to be an initial
uncertainty as to whether materialist dialectics formulates “laws of
thought” or “laws of the objective world”; and second, that to say it
does both makes the dogmatic assumption that these “laws” are
identical.
Such objections are (as we might have expected) rather vehemently
lodged by Dr. Popper.
The equation of laws of thought with laws of the objective world
is called by Dr. Popper “the philosophy of identity”, with its pernicious
source in Hegel. “Hegelian dialectic is based on his philosophy of
identity. If reason and reality are identical and reason develops
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS
123
dialectically . . . then reality must develop dialectically too. The world
must be ruled by the laws of dialectical logic” (CR. 329). With Hegel,
Dr. Popper concedes, this notion might appear “plausible and under-
standable” — for if, as Hegel asserted, “reality” is the creation of
“reason”, then one would expect the laws of the objective world to
be identical with the laws of thought. But all the same, the whole
“philosophy of identity” is, so Dr. Popper assures us, an “utter
absurdity”. And it becomes “even worse” when “dialectic idealism”
is replaced by dialectical materialism. “Its holders then argue that
reality is in fact of a material or physical character . . . and by saying
that it is identical with reason or mind . . . imply that the mind is also
a material or physical phenomenon — or, to be less radical, that if the
mind should be somewhat different from it then the difference cannot
be of great importance” (CR. 331).
Just as King Midas reduced what he touched to gold, so Dr. Popper
reduces what he discusses to nonsense. Dialectical materialism appears
to him so absurd only because of the utter absurdity of his exposition
of “the philosophy of identity”.
An impartial consideration of the logical character of category-
statements (of which the philosophy of dialectical materialism consists)
will show how and why they are at one and the same time “laws of
thought” (not, of course, in the sense of psychological laws but of
“normative” laws) and true of the objective world. This has nothing
whatever to do either with any Hegelian notion of the identity of
“the rational and the real”, not with any Dr. Popperite notion (for it
certainly is not a Marxist or materialist one) that “the mind is also a
physical phenomenon”, or that the distinction between mental and
physical phenomena “cannot be of great importance”.
Let us consider once more the stock example of the dialectical law
or category-statement about quality and quantity. This is “a law of
thought” — not, of course, in the sense that it states a psychological
law to the effect that whenever one thinks of a qualitative change one
must think of a quantitative one, as whenever Mrs. Shandy thought
of the clock being wound up “the thoughts of some other things
unavoidably popped into her head” — but in the sense that it states a
general principle of how to connect the qualitative and quantitative
aspects of reality. It is also “a law of the objective world”, inasmuch
as quantitative and qualitative changes take place whether we are
thinking of them or not, and are connected in the way stated in the
law. This law can in fact be expressed equally well either way round :
124
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
one can say that qualitative and quantitative changes are connected,
and therefore we should always think of them as connected; or that
we find a necessary connection between the categories of quality and
quantity, and therefore qualitative and quantitative changes are
connected. And the same goes for category-statements in general.
These sorts of stated connections are discovered in the objective
world — and they certainly would be fancy ones and not real unless
they were there discovered. They are “abstracted”, just as Engels said.
And having been so abstracted they are formulated as “laws of
thought” and tested, not as empirical laws are tested but as category-
statements are tested — as Engels also implied when he wrote about
“the science of thought and its laws”. Exactly as Engels said, materialist
dialectics is “the science of interconnections” or (in his slightly Pick-
wickian use of the word “motion”) “the science of the laws of motion
both of the external world and of human thought”. Exactly as
Lenin said, dialectics is “a law of cognition and a law of the objective
world”.
It has often been considered puzzling that by a process of thinking,
of combining and recombining concepts, we should be able to arrive
at conclusions which are practically reliable — that by working out in
our heads what is going to happen we should arrive at a conclusion
duly verified by what does happen. For example, if an artificial
satellite is put into orbit we can, simply by calculations, know where
it is to be found at any moment of time. Is it not strange that things
should actually and regularly behave according to our ideas of them?
According to Hegel's . “philosophy of identity” the only possible
explanation for such a state of affairs is that the material world was
created by a divine intelligence. Material things correspond to ideas
of them because they were created in accordance with ideas. And this
is, indeed, the fundamental standpoint of “objective idealism”. It is a
sophisticated version of the old “argument from design” by which
theologians sought to prove the existence of God. How extraordinary
that the grass feeds the cow and the cow's digestive processes turn it
into milk to feed us ! This could only happen because God designed it
that way! But there is another explanation. The cow evolved by a
process of natural selection in an environment where grass was growing
and when people came to live in such places they found in the cow an
animal which they could learn to domesticate as a source of food.
Similarly, if our ideas correspond to things outside us, there is another
explanation than that things were specially created to correspond to
THE NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS
125
ideas. It is that we learned by trial and error to make our ideas corre-
spond to things, because unless they did so our ideas would be useless
to us, and worse than useless.
The point of the materialist “philosophy of identity” was put in a
very clear and simple way by Engels, in Chapter 3 of Anti-Duhring.
Puzzles arise, he said, from “accepting ‘consciousness*, ‘reasoning*, as
something given ... in contrast to being, to nature. If this were so,
it must seem extremely remarkable that consciousness and nature,
thinking and being, the laws of thought and the laws of nature, should
be so closely in correspondence. But if the further question is raised:
what then are thought and consciousness, and whence they come, it
becomes apparent that they are products of the human brain and that
man himself is a product of nature, which has been developed in and
along with its environment; whence it is self-evident that the products
of the human brain, being in the last analysis also products of nature,
do not contradict the rest of nature but are in correspondence with it.**
There is neither inconsistency nor any other sort of “absurdity** in
the dialectical materialist “philosophy of identity’*. The so-called
“philosophy of identity” certainly appeared a rather odd one in the
writings of Hegel, when he asserted that categories existed eternally
in the realm of the Absolute Idea and were materialised in processes
in space and time. There is nothing at all odd in it, as propounded by
Marx. As he explained, “the ideal is nothing else than the material
world reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of
thought”. So since the categories of thought are abstracted from the
material world, and reflect it, there is nothing surprising in universal
truth about the material world being correctly stated in the form of
category-statements. By rationally demonstrating “the laws of thought”
we demonstrate the laws of the objective process reflected in. thought.
Dr. Popper represents “the philosophy of identity” and dialectical
materialism as an absurd ideology, trapped out as a “reinforced
dogmatism” so as to defend itself from every rational criticism.
Closer examination shows, however, that it is a rational exercise in
the principles of practical thinking, reinforced only by its demand for
continual critical test.
It was no accident at all that it was Marxism, the ideology of the
modern working-class movement and of communism, which first
developed the consistent criticism of all idealism and metaphysics,
found the basis for “the science of thought and its laws”, and demanded
that every statement and every principle used to guide human practice
126
TOWARDS AN OPEN PHILOSOPHY
should be critically tested and never accepted on authority. It is true
that there have been, and still emerge from the woodwork, exception-
ally “orthodox” Marxists who like to set up texts as authorities, and
consider it detrimental to Marxism that these texts should ever be
tested (since to test is to question), and still more so that any develop-
ment of Marxist ideas should take place. But the aim of the eman-
cipation of humanity from exploitation, and the advance towards
communism, demands that everything should be tested, and that
ideas should be continually developed — for its success demands a grasp
of things as they are, and not as someone may have said they are.
The true militant is always questioning. He will allow himself to be
imposed on by no dogmas, whether of the “right” or of the “left”:
for they are all blinkers preventing him from taking stock of the
world around.
And now we may pass on to see how the principles of dialectical
materialism apply to the understanding of society, of human life and
human needs, and of the means to satisfy human needs. What sort of
dogmatism and accompanying misdirection of human affairs does it
produce?
PART TWO
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
I
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
I. THE DOGMATISM OF HISTORICISM
Historical materialism, the Marxist theory of man and society, is the
application to social problems of die general theory of dialectical
materialism. And since dialectical materialism enjoins us to study
things in their real changes and interconnections, the conclusions of
historical materialism about social affairs, about the laws of social
development, and about what we can do now to solve the pressing
problems of contemporary society, are reached as a result of doing
precisely that.
Having stigmatised the general philosophy of Marxism as “rein-
forced dogmatism”, Dr. Popper proceeds to explain how tills general
dogmatic approach produces the particular form of dogmatism which
he finds characteristic of Marx’s social theories — the dogmatism of
“historicism”. He presumes, reasonably enough, that dogma produces
dogma — so that with an absurdly dogmatic philosophy there goes an
absurdly dogmatic theory of man and society. Just as dialectical
materialism allegedly replaces the scientific study of the different
aspects of real processes by a dogma that the process as a whole must
go through the dialectical sequence of “thesis-antithesis-synthesis”, so
does Marx’s historicism replace the scientific study of social affairs
by the dogma that society must necessarily pass through a pre-ordained
dialectical progress from primitive communism through class-society
to the final communist millennium. But just as Dr. Popper’s inter-
pretation of dialectical materialism as “reinforced dogmatism” and of
“the dialectic” as a scheme of “thesis-antithesis-synthesis” is an absurd
travesty, so is his interpretation of historical materialism as embodying
what he calls “liistoricist” dogma.
Dr. Popper defines historicism as “an approach to the social
sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their principal
aim, and . . . that this aim is attainable by discovering the ‘rhythms’
or the ‘patterns’, the ‘laws’ or the ‘trends’ that underlie the evolution
of history” (PH. 3). Marx, he assures us, was “a famous historicist”
(PH. 8).
Why should one not aim at “historical prediction”? The point is
130
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
that the historical predictions engaged in by historicists are entirely
unlike the more modest predictions normally made by the sciences.
For “ordinary predictions in science are conditional. They assert that
certain changes (say, of the temperature of water in a kettle) will be
accompanied by other changes (say, the boiling of the water).”
Historicist predictions, on the other hand, are “unconditional historical
prophecies” (Cll. 339).
Thus historicism considers it “the task of the social sciences to
furnish us with long-term historical prophecies” (i-OS. 3). It ceases
to be a science and becomes “a wider philosophical scheme . . . the
view that the story of mankind has a plot, and that if we can succeed
in unravelling this plot, we shall hold the key to the future” (CR. 338).
“Historicism is out to find the Path in which mankind is destined
to walk” (2-OS. 269).
Historicism has its own method for “unravelling the plot” and
discovering the destined “Path”. This is the historical method. “The
way of obtaining knowledge of social institutions ... is to study its
[sic] history” (2-OS. 37). “We can obtain knowledge of social
entities . . . only ... by studying social changes” (2-OS. 7). To know
what is destined to happen in society one must study the origins and
development of society, and so discover the “rhythms, patterns, laws
and trends” which are at work and which will infallibly determine
the future.
And historicism has also its practical political application. The
historicist tries “to understand the laws of historical development. If
he succeeds in this, he will, of course, be able to predict future develop-
ments. He might then put politics on a solid basis, and give us practical
advice by telling us which political actions are likely to succeed or
likely to fail” (i-OS. 8). “Sociological study should help reveal the
political future, and . . . could thereby become the foremost instrument
of far-sighted practical politics” (PH. 42).
Marx, then, as “a famous historicist”, studied social changes with
a view to making “unconditional prophecies”. Regardless of the fact
that genuine science can make only “conditional predictions”, Marx
thought that his “philosophical scheme” could “put politics on a
solid basis”. He thought he knew what was fated to happen, and could
base politics on preparing for it.
Having thus charged Marx and Marxists with the fallacies of
historicism, Dr. Popper proceeds to bring three more charges of
theoretical misdemeanour, which he expounds as companion errors
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION 131
which go with historicist dogma. These are “essentialism”, “holism , ’
and “utopianism”.
“Historicism” is tied up with “essentialism”. For the belief in
“unconditional historical prophecies”, incompatible with genuine
science, is dependent on the belief that the “essences” of things unfold
themselves in an inevitable historical development, so that if one can
but discover “the essence” one infallibly knows what is going to
happen. “It is argued that the task of social science is to understand
and explain such sociological entities as the state, economic action,
the social group, etc., and that this can be done only by penetrating
into their essences” (PH.30).
“I use the name methodological essentialism,” writes Dr. Popper,
with polysyllabic orotundity, “to characterise the view . . . that it
is the task of pure knowledge or ‘science’ to discover and to describe
the true nature of things, i.e. their hidden reality or essence” (i-OS. 3 1).
According to essentialism, “the best, the truly scientific theories,
describe the ‘essences’ or the ‘essential natures’ of things — the realities
which lie behind the appearances” (CR. 104).
The essence (so Dr. Popper explains the doctrine of “essentialism”
and its connection with “historicism”) reveals itself in a certain pattern
of development. For “in order to become real or actual, the essence
must unfold itself in change” (2-OS. 8). Thus “applying this principle
to sociology we are led to the conclusion that the essence or the real
character of a social group can reveal itself, and be known, only
through its history” (PH. 33). By studying the historical pattern of
development of society, therefore, one penetrates to the essence of
society — and having grasped the essence one can then understand the
necessity of that particular pattern of development, and can infallibly
predict its continuation. “Change, by revealing what is hidden in
the undeveloped essence, can only make apparent the essence, the
potentialities, the seeds, which from the beginning have inhered in
the changing object. This doctrine leads to the historicist idea of an
historical fate or an inescapable essential destiny” (2-OS. 7).
Being guilty of historicism, then, Marx and Marxists could not
but be also guilty of essentialism. Marxism means that the inescapable
destiny of man in society is predetermined by the social essence of
man. By studying human history one can discover what this essence
is, and so acquire the power of making unconditional prophecies.
Error, like crime, has its own crazy logic; and Dr. Popper goes
on to explain that, once guilty of historicism and essentialism, Marxism
132
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
could not but degenerate further into “holism” and “utopianism”.
One would almost suppose that Dr. Popper imagines himself digging
into the very depths of the essence of Marxism. A fine lot of nonsense
he digs up, and no wonder, for he buried it all there himself.
“The strongest element in the alliance between historicism and
utopianism is, undoubtedly, the holistic approach which is common
to both,” writes Dr. Popper (PH. 74). “Historicism is interested in
the development, not of aspects of social life, but of ‘society as a
whole’.”
We must study “society as a whole”, says the essentialist-historicist,
and study particular “aspects of social life” only as their development
is determined by that of the whole. The trouble with this injunction,
says Dr. Popper, is that “if we wish to study a tiring, we are bound
to select certain aspects of it. It is not possible for us to observe or
to describe a whole piece of the world, or a whole piece of nature;
in fact, not even the smallest whole piece may be so described, since
all description is necessarily selective” (PH. 77). It is not the develop-
ment of the whole which determines that of particular aspects, but
the development of particular aspects, and their complex interaction,
which determines the development of the whole.
Historicism and essentialism, demanding a “holistic approach”,
become thereby involved in “utopianism”. For “holists not only plan
to study the whole society by an impossible method, they also plan
to control and reconstruct our society ‘as a whole’ ” (PH. 79). And
that is utopianism. Thus Marx’s “unconditional historical prophecies”
about the development of “society as a whole” became a “utopian
blueprint”. “He predicted, and tried actively to further, a development
culminating in an ideal utopia” (PH. 74). “Marx saw the real task of
scientific socialism in the annunciation of the impending socialist
millennium” (2-OS. 86).
But unfortunately, utopianism, based on “an impossible method”,
can never lead to the realisation of utopia. “Even with the best inten-
tions of making heaven on earth it only succeeds in making it a hell —
that hell which man alone prepares for his fellow-men” (i-OS. 168).
Marx’s theoretical misdemeanours have encouraged Communists,
Dr. Popper subsequently explains, in their nefarious work of suppres-
sing individuality, instigating violence and tyranny, and perpetuating
a “closed society”.
We had best remember now that, with Dr. Popper, we are still in
Wonderland, where everything is queer and the meanings of words
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
133
get twisted. As soon as the charge was read the King of Hearts told
the jury “Consider your verdict”. But that was too much, even for
the White Rabbit. “Not yet ! Not yet !” the Rabbit hastily interrupted.
“There’s a great deal to come before that!” There is indeed a great
deal to be said on the topics expounded in Dr. Popper’s charge. But
to say it we must leave Wonderland and take a look at how things
are in the real world, and cease to discuss general philosophical
principles but rather apply them in the concrete analysis of concrete
conditions.
2. MEN MAKE THEIR OWN HISTORY
According to Marx: “Men make their own history, but they do not
make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances
chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered,
given and transmitted from the past” ( The Eighteenth Brumaire of
Louis Bonaparte , Ch. 1).
In other words, men make their own history by their own actions —
no “fate” makes it for them. But men in their actions respond to
whatever circumstances they find themselves in. They directly
encounter circumstances given and transmitted from the past — that is
to say, created for them by past generations; change these by their
actions ; then again respond to the changed circumstances ; and so on,
for as long as mankind endures.
This may be called “reinforced dogmatism”, but it sounds more like
reinforced common sense. What are some of the implications, as
regards human action and its possibilities?
It means, in the first place, that while men make their own history,
what they can and cannot do at any place and time depends not
simply on their own desires and decisions but on the circumstances
in which they are placed. It is in this sense that they do not make
their history “just as they please”. Obviously, as Marx said, people
cannot choose their own circumstances — one does not choose to be
bom, nor to be born into one set of circumstances rather than another.
Choice applies to what to do in whatever circumstances one finds
oneself; and the circumstances limit the choice of action. But because
of this, circumstances not only limit what men can do, but condition
what in practice they want to do; people’s desires, aims and ideals
are conditioned by their circumstances; what one effectively wants
to do, or would like to see done, takes its start from the circumstances
134
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
in which the wish is bom. It means, too, that men’s ways of thinking —
the scope of their ideas, the ways they conceive of themselves and of
the world about them — are conditioned by circumstances. And lastly,
it is obvious enough that, while men may choose and decide what
to do in given circumstances, they cannot choose or decide what
effects their actions, once embarked upon, are going to have. Men
can act with the intention of bringing about certain effects; whether
these effects actually take place, or whether something quite different
happens, does not depend on the intention of the action but on the
action itself, and the circumstances in which it was performed.
It was on no deeper or darker philosophical presuppositions than
these that Marx and Engels proceeded to consider how, in actual fact,
“men make their own history”.
At the start of their first mature work on this subject, The German
Ideology , they remarked that “the first premise of all human history
is the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be
established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their
consequent relation to the rest of nature”. Having established that
fact, they went on to inquire how the innumerable actions of innumer-
able human individuals could come to make human history.
The “physical organisation” of human individuals is, of course, a
consequence of the natural evolution of species; and “their relation to
the rest of nature” is a further consequence. The unique physical
characteristics of the human species, namely, the upright stance, hands
and brain, lead to their unique relation to the rest of nature, namely,
obtaining their requirements from nature by means of social produc-
tion. Human psychology is, then, a further consequence — the product
of individuals with this physical organisation living in society.
In order, then, to carry on their relation with the rest of nature — in
other words, in order to live, since organisms live only by obtaining
their requirements from nature — people devise instruments of pro-
duction, learn the skills to use them, and enter into social relations of
production. They evolve their social mode of production, which
consists of employing certain forces of production and instituting
definite relations of production in order to deploy the social pro-
ductive forces and distribute the product.
This is how the past generations create the circumstances with which
the next generations have to cope. What they do, by their social
activity in the physical environment, is in the first place to equip their
successors with certain forces of production and provide them with a
fflSTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
135
physical environment changed and refashioned in various ways by the
past application of those forces of production. In the second place, they
setde them in definite relations of production within which the forces
of production are deployed. Finally, they hand on to them a whole
heritage of institutions, customs and ways of life, knowledge, ideas
and culture, and leave them to continue a whole set of undecided
conflicts and arguments and uncompleted activities.
In the study of history the successors look back on how the pre-
decessors managed to make things turn out the way they did — at
least, that is how history must be regarded if its study is to prove of any
practical advantage, and that is how Marx and Engels evidently
regarded it. “All history must be studied afresh, the conditions of
existence of the different formations of society must be examined in
detail,” wrote Engels to C. Schmidt (August 5, 1890). And he told his
correspondent that “our conception of history is above all a guide to
study”. The materialist conception of history is a guide to study in the
same way that any other scientific conception is a guide to study. Our
conception of human physiology, for example, is a guide to study,
because it tells us what to look for in order to be able to explain how
the phenomena are brought about — in a case of epilepsy, say, to look
for the brain lesion responsible for the condition, rather than for the
evil spirit. And so with the materialist conception of history. Marx
and Engels pointed out that, whatever people do in society, they can
only do it on the basis of being mutually involved in a mode of
production — for without that, they could not live or do anything at
all. As they change their forces of production, and consequently create
problems for themselves the solution of which requires changed
relations of production, so do people modify in various ways the
character of all the rest of their activity.
It is because people live by social production that human societies
have a history different in kind from, say, the history of a community
of ants. Ants could not, of course, study their own history in any case,
since they are not physically equipped for studying. However, out-
side observers could quite well study the history of a" given community
of ants, and in it would be recorded not only the common round of
hatching out the eggs, and so on, but also such “historical” events as
floods and other catastrophes, wars with neighbouring anthills, and
great migrations of ants. It is a shortcoming of some human historians
that they study the history of men just as though men were nothing
but a talkative kind of ants. But it is not only speech and the element of
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
136
individual consciousness or purposive activity that distinguish men.
Human history differs from the history of ants by exhibiting a type of
historical development which is peculiarly human; and this is due to
the social production by which men live. The mode of production
changes. Ants always get their living in the same way; but not so
human beings. People acquire new productive forces, and change
their relations of production. And this introduces a quite new factor
into human history. Human history is the history of how men acquired
and used forces of production, and adapted their relations of pro*
duction to the requirements of developing their forces of production ;
it is the history of how men did this, and what activities, difficulties,
defeats and victories, constructive enterprises and wars, they in-
volved themselves in doing it.
Dr. Popper explains that the historicist “sees the individual as a
pawn, as a somewhat insignificant instrument in the general develop-
ment of mallkind ,, (i-OS. 7-8). But the materialist conception of
history, as a way of studying and understanding human history, does
not mean, as Marx and Engels themselves made abundantly clear, that
history is made in any other way than by the activities of human
individuals. It does not mean that what individuals may think and
do counts for nothing, that they are all mere “pawns”, and that what
alone counts is the inexorable development of “the different forma-
tions of society”. For to talk about the “social formation” is simply
to talk about how individuals, having socially acquired certain pro-
ductive forces, involved themselves in certain production relations.
What it does mean is that, to see how the circumstances of the new
generation were transmitted to them by the old, we have to see how
the forces of production were developed and how the relations of
production were managed; and that to see what the generation can
or cannot do in such circumstances, and how their practical outlook is
consequently generated, we have to see what can or cannot be done by
way of preserving or changing both the relations of production and
the forces of production deployed within them.
The Marxist materialist conception of history is, then, the scientific
conception of how the old people bring into being the circumstances
which the young people are born into and have to cope with. Like
other scientific conceptions in other spheres, it is of great practical
value. In the first place, it assists us in making an accurate assessment of
just what our circumstances are, and dispelling illusions about them.
In the second place, by the historical study of how social circumstances
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
137
are brought about we can reach conclusions as to what sort of things
can and cannot be done to cope with them.
3. HISTORICAL PREDICTION
How far, we may now ask, does the study of history enable us to
predict the future? And what sort of predictions does it enable us to
make?
Marxism means making “unconditional long-term historical
prophecies”, Dr. Popper tells us; and the “principal aim” of Marxists
in. studying history is to deduce such prophecies from it.
The principal aim of Marxists in studying history is not to prophesy
but to understand, and to direct practical action in the light of under-
standing. “Men make their own history”, said Marx. We study
history to try to understand how we make it, and consequently how
to go on making it without illusions that it can be made in some other
way than that in which it is in fact made.
Obviously, so far as the past is concerned, history is not predictive
but descriptive and explanatory. We do not study the events of, say,
a thousand years ago in order to predict die events of, say, nine
hundred years ago — for when we study the earlier events we already
know what the subsequent events were. We study the past sequence
of events in order to try to discover explanatory generalisations about
how later events issue from earlier ones. Marx's discovery was that to
explain the historical sequence we must always, first, examine the
mode of production and how it develops, and second examine how
people acted socially in order to adapt their production relations, and
their institutions and ideas, to their forces of production.
This descriptive-explanatory approach to the study of history does
not represent history as the automatic consequence of the operation of
inexorable “laws” — like, for example, a closed mechanical system in
which a later state inexorably ensues from the earlier by the operation
of the laws of mechanics. It is often said that, for the materialist con-
ception of history, everything happens “according to laws”. If that
means that the materialist conception of history formulates explanatory
generalisations about how human society always develops, well and
good; that is just what the materialist conception of history does do.
But to suggest that there are “laws” governing human actions such
that, given certain circumstances, all the ensuing events are uniquely
determined by those laws, is obviously mere empty talk. What are
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
138
these laws? Where are they stated? Where is their verification to be
found? You can read right through the historical works of Marx, and
of all other competent Marxist historians (and, indeed, of all reputable
historians, whether Marxists or not), and not meet with any formula-
tions of any such laws. Such a theory of “laws’’ is in fact a hangover
from the days when it was thought that the entire material world was
a closed mechanical system — and it has, needless to say, very little in
common with the scientific ideas of dialectical and historical material-
ism. It has to be given up because no one can discover such laws, and
the idea that there must be such laws is a groundless dogma.
The historical works of Marx himself, and of Marxist historians
(as can easily be verified by reading them), do not proceed by trying
to show how the later events necessarily followed from the earlier ones
in accordance with inexorable laws, but by showing how people, in
the development of social production, became involved in certain
contradictions and problems, and how they acted to resolve those
contradictions and problems. And the basis is always the adaptation
of relations of production to forces of production.
It is to this guiding idea that the materialist conception of history
owes not only its descriptive-explanatory power as regards the past,
but its prescriptive power as regards the present. It is a guide to study
of the present in its emergence from the past, so as to conclude what
are the historical issues of today and what best to do to develop social
relations in order to plan social production to satisfy human needs.
Just that is the object of Communist theory and practice.
Any social situation contains certain historical issues, or historical
tasks. And these may be defined by the historian objectively, irrespec-
tive of the particular terms in which the individuals of the time,
through their ideological agencies, may present them to themselves.
“Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of
himself, so can we not judge of . . . a period ... by its own conscious-
ness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from
the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between
the social forces of production and the relations of production”, wrote
Marx, in the Preface to Critique of Political Economy .
It is not, as everyone knows, the historian’s object to search out and
record every single event of the past. He is primarily concerned with
the “historical” events — though just what makes an event historical
is a point not clarified by all historians. For Marxist historians, the key
to understanding any period is to discover the main historical issues of
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
139
that period — and these proceed from and relate to the development
of forces of production and the adaptation to it of production relations
and social institutions and ideas. Thus, for a Marxist, the question of
whether King Valoroso should award the Order of the Cucumber to
his son-in-law. Prince Bulbo, was hardly an historical issue — even
though the Court Journal, and historians who base their histories on
court journals, might regard it as an issue of great importance. The
historical events — die ones that constitute, so to speak, the fabric of
history — are those public events which mark a response to historical
issues and affect the issue. But of course, in a certain sense, any event
is of interest to historians, because even the most trivial ones illustrate
the sort of people there were, and their habits, and so are relevant to
understanding historical events ; and often an accidental concatenation
of small events can build up an effect which decisively alters the way
issues are tackled.
Looking at the overall development of human society from the
earliest times, Marxism sees it as the progressive posing and tackling
of a series of issues stemming from the development of productive
forces, and the adaptation to that development of the relations of
production. In many cases, as Marx made clear in his Pre-capitalist
Economic Formations , this adaptation has been unsuccessful, and has led
to a dead end rather than to further progressive development. The
thread of human progress can be traced through those communities
which successfully adapted their relations of production to the require-
ments of developing their productive forces. The overall history of
human society is, then, “a law-governed process” in the sense that it
exemplifies this general law of development. It is not, and could not be,
a “law-governed process” in the strict-determinist sense that there are
pre-ordained laws wliich allow nothing to happen except what does
happen.
With human affairs, as with other things, a conception of how they
go enables us to make predictions about future events. But the test of
the adequacy or otherwise of a conception of how tilings go does not
lie (as Dr. Popper seems sometimes to suggest) only in waiting to find
out whether or not predictions are verified. We also test the concep-
tion of how tilings go by examining the record of how they have
gone — and “refutations” may be as readily sought in the past as
awaited in the future. For this reason we can always claim that scientific
conceptions are pretty well established by what has happened already,
without having to join Dr. Popper in regarding them all as mere
140
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
“conjectures” about the future which may well be falsified at any
moment. This applies to our conceptions of how, say, physical and
chemical processes go — and also to our conceptions of how social
processes go. The warranted assertibility (to adopt a useful phrase
invented and misused by the pragmatists) of our conceptions of how
things go depends on the thoroughness with which we have investi-
gated how they have gone.
Our conceptions are further tested and, if need be, modified, by the
verification or falsification of the predictions they enable us to make.
The purpose of predictions is not, however, simply to test our con-
ceptions. It is to direct our actions. For unless we made predictions
we could never direct our actions at all. For example, we could not
direct the making of tea unless we could predict that water boils when
heated, and that boiling water poured onto dried tea-leaves produces
tea. In directing our actions, therefore, it is important to possess con-
ceptions the assertibility of which is pretty well warranted already, so
that the predictions derived from them may be acted on with a reason-
able degree of confidence and not be regarded as only “conjectures”.
To furnish such a conception of human affairs is the aim and claim
of the materialist conception of history.
We can and always do rely on being able to make a whole number
of predictions to direct human activities. We rely on being able to say:
“If A happens, B will happen”, or “Since A has happened, B will
happen unless C intervenes”, and so on. We rely, in other words, on
what Dr. Popper calls “conditional predictions”. These may often be
usefully expressed, as he has said, in the form of prohibitions: “A B
cannot happen; hence since A has happened, B will not happen”. Ex-
perience and study warrant us in making many such predictions about
physical, chemical and biological processes ; and (as practically
everyone, including Dr. Popper, agrees) experience and study warrant
us in making many such predictions about human activities too.
Does the materialist conception of history claim a warrant, however,
for any other kinds of predictions — long-term “unconditional” ones,
as Dr. Popper expresses it? Does Marxism propose to justify statements
of the form: “So and so will happen, regardless”? Such statements are,
as Dr. Popper rightly says, foreign to the natural sciences. Does
Marxism unscientifically propose to introduce them into the social
sciences?
Marx’s discovery of the general “law of historical development”
does lead to a “long-term” prediction. And Dr. Popper rightly says
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION I4I
that this long-term prediction is regarded by Marxists as of very great
theoretical and practical importance. The logic of this long-term pre-
diction is quite simple. In order to go on developing their forces of
production people have always to adapt their production relations to
their productive forces. Hence if the present-day forces of production
go on being developed, the relations of production will be adapted to
them. The existing capitalist relations fetter production. If production
is to go on developing these fetters will be removed and socialist and,
later, communist relations of production established.
Obviously, this long-term prediction depends not only on “the
general law” but also on the hypothesis that capitalist relations fetter
production and that the removal of the fetters of private appropriation
equals social appropriation. The latter, less general, hypothesis, is
verified in terms of contemporary history, just as the more general
hypothesis is verified in terms of universal history. So what is there
“unscientific” in the consequent long-term prediction? It would be
absurd to say that only “short-term” predictions are scientific. Scientific
thought ventures on long-term predictions in other spheres covered
by scientific hypothesis, so why not in the sphere of human activity?
Of course, if hypotheses are found to be wrong, then the consequential
predictions, whether short-term or long-term, have to be modified.
But in so far as confidence in the hypotheses is warranted, so is con-
fidence in predictions, long-term and short-term. This goes for Marx’s
hypotheses like anyone else’s. Of course, those who have a stake in
maintaining the capitalist system do not like Marx’s long-term pre-
diction of its displacement. But that is a complication which merely
introduces extra-scientific disputes into a scientific question. Scienti-
fically speaking, the logic of Marx’s long-term prediction is im-
peccable.
Dr. Popper does not, of course, deny that long-term prediction is
sometimes permissible in the sciences. But he maintains that the
conditions for it are not present in the social sciences. “Long-term
prophecies”, he writes (CR. 339-40), “can be derived from scientific
conditional predictions only if they apply to systems which can be
described as well-isolated, stationary, and recurrent. These systems
are very rare in nature; and modern society is surely not one of
them. . . . Society is changing, developing. This development is not,
in the main, repetitive.”
Of course society develops, and the development is not repetitive.
That does not mean that there cannot possibly be a discoverable law of
142
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
development. On the contrary, Marx discovered the law — the law of
the adaptation of production relations to productive forces. And
clearly, if this law describes the way society develops, then the deve-
lopment is non-repetitive. Non-repetitive development does not mean
that there is no law, nor that the law cannot be formulated in such a
way that from the analysis of the present stage of development a
prediction of the next stage can be made. Evidently, therefore, Dr.
Popper is mistaken in his dogmatic and unsupported statement that
long-term prediction can apply only to “well-isolated, stationary and
recurrent systems” .
His argument depends on a simple confusion between long-term
prediction and what he calls “unconditional” prophecy. It is quite
true that only in the case of a “well-isolated, stationary and recurrent
system” (“very rare in nature”, as Dr. Popper rightly says) could it be
guaranteed that no outside or non-recurrent factor was ever going to
interfere in the working of the laws normally governing the system.
Society is not a system of that kind, and Marx’s long-term predictions
about society only predict that die continued development of produc-
tion will bring socialism — because, in the long term, die condition
for it is the removal of the fetters of private appropriation. People have
always so far managed to overcome, eventually, obstacles to the
continued development of their productive forces; and if they go on
doing so, then socialism will come, and only if socialism comes will
they be able to go on doing so. That is the prediction. It is conditional,
not unconditional. It does not say that nodiing can ever possibly
prevent the advent of socialism. On die contrary, if people should
destroy their productive forces, along with most of the human race,
in a nuclear war, 'then many nations may never achieve socialism.
Again, an invasion of hostile forces from outer space might prevent
our achieving socialism. We may diink the latter catastrophe unlikely,
and have confidence in our ability to prevent die former, or even to
cope with its consequences if it happens — and so live in confident
expectation that the long-term prediction of socialism will come about,
because examination of the existing state of affairs shows that the
conditions for its being brought about are present. That is the practical
attitude of Communists. But it does not turn long-term scientifically-
based prediction into unconditional prophecy.
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
143
4. PREDICTION, PROBABILITY AND INTENT
The long-term prediction of socialism is a prediction about human
actions and the results of human actions. In this it differs, obviously,
from predictions about the operations of natural forces. As Engels,
perhaps rather tritely, remarked ( Ludwig Feuerbach , Ch. 4) : “In nature
there are only blind, unconscious agencies acting upon one another.
In the history of society, on the other hand, the actors are all endowed
with consciousness, are men acting with deliberation or passion,
working towards definite goals; nothing happens without a conscious
purpose, without an intended aim.” The long-term historical predic-
tion is, then, a prediction about what “men acting with deliberation or
passion, working towards definite goals” will do, and what results
will accrue from their doing it.
It is sometimes suggested that just because men act “with deliberation
or passion” it is impossible to make any predictions about them. Each
man decides what to do for himself, or acts from his own private
passions, so no over-all predictions can be made. That is absurd. We
all constantly make predictions of the form: “In such and such circum-
stances, such and such people will act in such and such a way, and such
and such results will follow”, and if we could not rely on any such
predictions we could not manage our social lives.
Predictions about human actions do not imply that human beings
act, and act on one another, in the same way as non-human or “natural”
agencies do. They act deliberately, they are moved by passions, they
form intentions and set themselves goals — and it is these sorts of
actions, and the results of these sorts of actions, that we predict.
For example, when a sufficient number of people are brought
together as wage-workers they start talking together about how to
improve their conditions, form organisations and formulate common
demands. They always do this, and we can predict that they will.
Such a prediction does not imply that the individual workmen are
“pawns”, whose deliberations and passions count for nothing. On the
contrary, the prediction is a prediction of their deliberations and
passions. In such circumstances enough workmen w r ill feel passionately
fed up and voluntarily organise as to constitute an effective organisa-
tion which can coerce or at least discount the opposition of those who
feel contented and do not voluntarily organise.
Such predictions are (as the above example makes evident) based on
estimates of probabilities of what will happen as a result of the inter-
144
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
action of a large number of interdependent variables. The same is true
of predictions about the behaviour of single individuals. When we
predict what a certain person will do, we are estimating the probable
outcome of all the various motivations and counter-motivations he
experiences.
Nearly all predictions, whether they concern human beings or not,
are similarly based on estimates of probability. Thus, for example, the
prediction that a kettle of water placed on a fire will boil is (as modern
science has shown) based on the estimate that more heat will pass from
the fire into the kettle than from the kettle into the fire, and that when
enough has passed the agitation of die molecules of water in the kettle
will produce the phenomenon of boiling. Predictions about working-
class organisation and other human activities depend on the same kind
of estimates of probability.
There is nothing especially uncertain or “conjectural” about such
estimates. On the contrary, it is by such estimates that we guide our
lives, and, if due care is exercised in arriving at them, they are extremely
reliable. Such reliable estimates can be arrived at about our own
actions, as well as about what goes on in the physical environment.
In the interpretation of the past, it is precisely such estimates of
probability that explain the overall progressive course of human
history. Not all communities have developed their forces of produc-
tion, but some have — and so a progressive overall development has
taken place, with new relations of production adapted to new forces of
production, up to humanity’s arrival at its present predicament. With
so many people carrying on social production for such a long time, it
was so probable as to be, practically speaking, inevitable that at least
some would on occasion enter into favourable circumstances when
they could improve on existing forces of production — and so the
progressive development took place, and is likely to continue. This is
the scientific explanation of human progress — what would probably
happen happened.
To explain why some particular development — the “classical”
slave empire, say, or modern capitalism — took place exactly where,
when and how it did, one has, of course, to ascertain a lot of relatively
coincidental facts: if something else had happened earlier (as it well
might), this development could have taken place somewhere else and
in a different way. But overall it was so probable as to be practically
inevitable that a great slave empire would develop somewhere, and
that, later on, capitalism would develop.
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
145
Moreover, when such developments take place they tend to be
unique. This is because whoever achieves the development either
prevents anyone else repeating it, or if others do follow suit the fact
that it has been done already alters their circumstances and makes
them do it differently. Thus, for example, the achievement of capital-
ism in one set of countries prevented a similar development in regions
which they colonised. Again, the head start which Britain gained in
capitalist development affected the conditions in which Britain’s com-
petitors had to operate. Again, the achievement of socialism in the
U.S.S.R. affects the whole character of the road to socialism in the
rest of the world.
The same sort of considerations explain, incidentally, the role and
the uniqueness of “great men”. When once one individual has come
to perform a “great man” function, he deprives others of the chance
of doing the same thing. Napoleon, for example, was unique, not only
because of his individual personality, which impelled him to the top
after the French Revolution, but because there could in any case be
only one emperor of the French.
In explaining social development and predicting its continuation,
therefore, the materialist conception of history does not, as a scientific
conception, need to invoke any inexorable “fate” or “destiny”
brooding over human affairs and directing them. We conduct our
affairs without that. And still the conduct of our affairs is, like other
things, explicable and predictable.
The same principles which explain how people acted in the past
explain how they are acting now, and serve to predict how they will
act in the future. Predictions about human affairs, however, very
clearly differ from predictions about natural processes, as well as from
explanations of past affairs, in that the people making the predictions
are themselves agencies in the processes through which the predictions
will be realised. To predict something which you yourself are going to
do — or at least, if not you yourself individually, the people with whom
you associate and with whose interests you identify your own — is
equivalent to a statement of intent. For instance, to predict “It is going
to rain” is simply to state what you expect to happen; but to predict,
“I am going to put on my raincoat” is a statement of intent. You
would not predict you would put on your raincoat if you did not
intend to do so.
In making such predictions, whether ones like “I shall put on my
raincoat” or “We shall achieve socialism”, we rely on an analysis of
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
146
the objective circumstances to which the predicted action is to be the
response. If that analysis proved mistaken, the predicted action would
either not take place, or, if it did, would not have the expected results.
If, for example, my analysis of the weather proves mistaken, I shall
either not put on my raincoat or, if I do, it will only weigh me down
and not keep me dry. Again, the analysis of circumstances may be
mistaken in such a way that the intention expressed is not in the
circumstances a practicable one. For instance, if I had lost my raincoat,
the prediction that I would put it on would not be fulfilled; in making
the prediction I would have simply forgotten that I had lost the raincoat.
In stating intentions, then, one generally reckons to have reasons
(based on an analysis of circumstances) for considering the intention
practical, and for considering that its fulfilment will bring certain
advantages or avoid certain misfortunes. If one learned that the
intention was not practical, or that it would not bring the expected
advantage or avoid the feared misfortune, then one would abandon
the intention and the prediction would not be fulfilled.
Evidently, therefore, the fact that predictions about future human
actions may also be statements of intent does not mean that such pre-
dictions are not founded on an objective analysis of circumstances ; nor
does the fact that such a prediction is founded on an analysis of circum-
stances mean that the carrying out of the predicted action is done under
the impulsion of fate, and not voluntarily to fulfil a stated intention. It
is obvious that such predictions can be well founded; and also that,
however well founded they are, they can only be fulfilled on condition
that the people whose intentions are expressed in the prediction
continue to try hard to carry out their intentions.
The Marxist prediction about socialism exhibits all the above
characteristics of a prediction which is also a statement of intent.
In this it certainly differs from, say, an astronomer’s prediction of an
eclipse. It likewise differs from certain other predictions about human
affairs — for of course, not all such predictions contain this element of
being a statement of intent. For example, when Louis XV of France
made his famous prediction, “Apres moi la deluge” (a well-founded
prediction which came true), he was simply stating what he expected
other people to do; and the “fatalistic” character of his prediction was
due to his (correct) opinion that he and his friends could not stop them
doing it. Marx’s prediction about socialism, on the other hand, was
also a statement of intent, and intended for adoption as a statement of
intent; and the conditions for its realisation included the condition
mSTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
147
that it should be widely adopted as an intent, and stuck to — for
otherwise, socialism would certainly not come about. It could only
come about by people purposively struggling for it. On the basis of
the same analysis of circumstances which made Marx voice the in-
tention of socialism, he concluded that a sufficient number of people
would adopt it.
Obviously, this prediction by Marx includes features not to be
found in such a simple prediction as “I shall put on my raincoat”,
though it does have in common with the latter the feature of expres-
sing an intention based on an objective analysis of circumstances.
For Marx’s prediction predicted what other people were going to do.
It is a “we” prediction, not an “I” prediction; and of course, every
“we” prediction is also a “they” prediction.
In this respect it may be compared with, say, a prediction made by
the first Everest expedition that “Everest will eventually be climbed”.
Such a prediction expresses an intention of climbing Everest, coupled
with a conclusion of the practicability of eventually getting to the top
and of the desirability of doing so. It relies also on the prediction, based
on estimates of the probabilities of human actions, that a sufficient
number of people will always want to get to the top of Everest, and
will devote enough care to the preparation of adequate techniques as
to ensure the eventual achievement.
It may also be noted that the same prediction could be made by
observers who had themselves no intention of climbing Everest.
Those observers would note that the intention had been formed, that
it was practicable, and that a sufficient number of people supported
it as to ensure its eventual success. But that the prediction can be made
on good grounds by mere observers does not make it fatalistic. For
the prediction would never be realised unless there were people who
intended to climb Everest and who adopted it as a statement of intent.
Observers could have no conclusive grounds for predicting the
climbing of Everest unless climbers intended to climb it and them-
selves predicted, as a statement of their intention, that the climb would
take place and go on taking place until they reached the top. True, in
this example observers of the habits of climbers might venture to
predict that Everest would eventually be climbed, even before any
climbers had themselves formed the intention of climbing Everest and
organised an expedition. All the same, the realisation of the prediction
would depend on the climbers forming the intention of attempting
that particular climb, and organising to achieve it.
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
148
It may also be noted, in all these examples, that the objective analysis
of circumstances on which such predictions are based includes, if the
predictions are well-founded, a causal explanation of why the intention
the fulfilment of which is predicted came to be formed and will gc on
being held. Thus in the case of putting on a raincoat, for example,
the explanation of the intention is that to go out in the prevailing rainy
conditions tends to give one a cold. In the case of climbing Everest,
the explanation of the intention is that climbers find it intolerable to
be confronted with mountains they have not climbed. And in the case
of socialism, the explanation of the intention is that under capitalist
conditions a great many people find intolerable the fetters capitalist
relations place on the satisfaction of human needs.
These considerations show that Marx’s “long-term” prediction of
socialism can claim, just like many simpler and shorter-term predic-
tions, to be well founded on an objective analysis of circumstances.
This analysis, is, by the nature of the case, complicated and difficult.
It requires in practice to be continually developed and checked. And of
course, if any part of it were shown to be quite wrong, then the
foundation for the prediction would be weakened, if not destroyed.
But as originally worked out by Marx, and continued by his successors,
it does provide a very firm and sound foundation for the prediction of
socialism.
In the first place, the prediction is founded on recognition of the
general law of social development — that production relations are
adapted to productive forces. Secondly, it is founded on an investiga-
tion of capitalist production relations and how they fetter productive
forces. Thirdly, it is founded on the demonstration that socialised
production, of the sort developed in modern industry, requires social
appropriation — so that the only way to develop modern socialised
production to meet social needs is to establish socialist relations of
production. Fourthly, it is founded on an analysis of the class struggle
which ensues from capitalist production relations, in which the in-
tention of achieving socialism corresponds to the class interests of the
majority of working people — so that there are good grounds to expect
that in the long run the forces activated by that intention will grow
stronger in comparison with those opposed to it. Fifthly, it is founded
on a very practical working out of the principles of the strategy and
tactics of the class struggle for socialism.
So as Marx claimed all along, the scientific study of society, its
history and how men make their own history, provides the foundation
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
149
for a long-term prediction of socialism. This is not, however, like the
predictions of astronomers who predict events which are going to
happen irrespective of human intentions and strivings. From the
nature of the case, being a prediction of the eventual outcome of a
struggle in which the makers of the prediction take part, it has the
characteristics of a political policy and a political propaganda. Marx
himself cited very good reasons to consider the policy sound, and to
persevere in it. And these very good reasons (provided they are stated
properly) serve as very good propaganda for the policy.
It is further evident from all this that the realisation of the prediction
of socialism depends on the building of an organisation, activated by
scientific socialist policy and with sufficient centralisation, unity and
discipline as to function in a consciously controlled way — in short,
on a political party of the working class. Marx himself made this very
clear. And it was underlined by Lenin, especially in his pamphlet,
What is to be done , where he pointed out that the merely “spontaneous* *
behaviour of people demanding some improvement in their con-
ditions could never result in socialism; for that, political organisation
was required, activated by scientific socialist theory.
Indeed, we cannot make well-founded long-term predictions about
social events unless we can at the same time build effective organisation
intended to carry them out. For without this, the people making the
predictions would be like architects predicting the erection of some
building without taking any steps to mobilise a labour force and
provide it with building machinery. It is, indeed, for this very reason
that, in the past (and also, for many of our fellow citizens, in the
present), people have not been able to make well-founded long-term
social predictions. For the sort of organisation necessary for carrying
them out could not be projected. They have occasionally hazarded
long-term predictions, but these were not well founded. Thus, for
instance, no great confidence can be reposed in the sort of long-term
predictions at present engaged in by various capitalist economic
planning agencies if only because in the prevailing capitalist conditions
the machinery does not exist and cannot be created for effectively
controlling their realisation.
The well-founded scientific long-term prediction of socialism
propounded by Marx was thus a novelty in human affairs. This
novelty was introduced by him (as one would expect such a novelty
to have been introduced) when and only when the social conditions
for its introduction were realised. The formation of the modern
150
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
working class brought into being for the first time in history the basis
for mass organisation which could effectively pursue a policy of bring-
ing relations of production into accordance with the social forces of
production in a controlled way, guided by the scientific study of the
structure and mode of development of human society. Naturally,
therefore, the scientific theory of society, on which the modem
revolutionary socialist movement relies, was worked out when and
only when that organisation began to be created ; and not independently
of the work of creating and directing the organisation, but as an
integral part of it. This means that for the first time in history men
have begun to take the future into their own hands, in the sense of
being able to build an organisation which could so understand the
issues as to predict where it was going, and go there.
Such, then, being the logical character of the long-term predictions
scientifically worked out by Marxist social theory, we can also reach
some conclusions as to the necessary limits of predictability.
I have already pointed out that well-founded social predictions are
not “ unconditional” but conditional, that they are based on estimates
of probabilities, and that their realisation depends on the existence of
effective organisation to create the conditions for carrying them out
and to carry them out.
In the first place, therefore, we cannot predict anything beyond
what the organisation can carry out. Marx's predictions concerned
the work of Communist organisations in bringing about first socialism,
and then the transition from socialism to communism. It is clear
enough that, when the latter goal is realised, the communist organ-
isation will have completed its function. So what people do after that
will be up to them. We can certainly predict that the principal causes
of present social ill will by then have been finally removed and that,
having established social appropriation to match social production,
people will not go back again to private appropriation. But while on
these grounds we can express the confident hope that, when com-
munism is established, people will manage much better than they did
in the past, or do now, we cannot possibly predict just how they will
manage, or what exactly they will decide to do, or what new diffi-
culties they will meet and how they will cope with them.
In the second place, because of the way social life depends on deve-
loping and deploying forces of production, prediction is limited to
what can be done with the forces of production at present under
development. It is true, of course, that on the basis of existing tech-
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION 151
nology certain predictions can be made about probable technological
advance in the future. In other words, certain discoveries can be seen
coming; and this, of course, is the basis for planned research. For
example, once certain fundamental discoveries of nuclear physics had
been made the technology of nuclear energy could be seen coming,
and so research was devoted to its development. So, at the present day,
we can see coming a very big development of the technology of
nuclear energy, automation and electronic computers, and space
travel, and can forecast various ways in which these technologies will
be used. However, this kind of technological forecasting is limited.
We cannot possibly predict the content of entirely new discoveries —
for obviously, if we could predict them we would have discovered
them already. Hence we cannot predict what new technologies will be
invented, after the present ones have been more fully developed. And
so we cannot predict what human life will be like in the event (and
it is in the long-term the very probable event) of new fundamental
discoveries. People in the Stone Age could not have predicted the
discovery of iron. And we remain in a similar position.
5. NECESSITY AND INEVITABILITY
Marx “was the first to put sociology on a scientific basis’*, wrote
Lenin in What the Friends of the People Are , “by establishing the concept
of the economic formation of society as the sum-total of relations of
production, and by establishing the fact that the development of such
formations is a process of natural history.”
That the evolution of social-economic formations is like natural
history means that the past course of social evolution is explained like
natural history. Just as the evolution of species is explained by the
necessity of organisms being adapted to their environments, so is the
evolution of social formations explained by the necessity of production
relations being adapted to productive forces. In social evolution,
presumably, this adaptation will continue, just as species will continue
to be adapted to their environments.
In predicting the future we presume that it will be explicable on the
same lines as the past. Nevertheless, this does not mean that prediction
of future social events is like prediction of natural events. For our own
role in the process of bringing about those events is different. A similar
distinction must be made, of course, regarding predictions of natural
events subjected to human interference.
152
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
Science, which is something which people do, must always take
into account the relation of the people doing the science to the pro-
cesses which the science is about. Men make their own history.
Therefore the relation of people trying scientifically to understand
social processes to the processes they are trying to understand is
different from that of the same people to natural processes. And
therefore, this difference must be taken into account in thinking
scientifically about social prospects.
It is true that some people (those whom Dr. Popper calls “histori-
cists”) try to take what may be called a “god’s eye” view of human
affairs, and to predict the future of these little creatures crawling over
the face of the earth as though they themselves and their contem-
poraries were not engaged in making that future. However, the god’s
eye view is not the scientific view. Some see in the crystal ball visions
of utopia, others catastrophe, or unending cycles of decay and re-
generation. But none of their prophecies are, or can be, well founded —
because they do not take into account how people actually make
history, and do not back their predictions with practical proposals for
an organisation to carry them out. Instead, they imagine themselves
as looking down on society from a stance outside society — which is as
absurd as a physicist imagining himself as looking at the physical world
through an instrument which is not itself physical.
In his criticisms of “historicism” Dr. Popper justifiably questions
the assumptions of crystal-gazers. Evidently, his criticisms have no
bearing on the scientific study of society, and the proposals for and
predictions of future social activity, made by Marx. Marx did not gaze
into any crystal. Nor did he imagine himself as looking down on
society, like a man who watches a carpet being unrolled, and who
predicts the pattern on the next bits to appear from what he has seen
of the pattern so far. From studying history Marx concluded that men
make their history by adapting their production relations to their
productive forces. He worked out how we can do this today, made
practical proposals for organisation for doing it — and predicted that
it would be done. As Lenin said, he “put sociology on a scientific
basis”, and so put political policy-making on a scientific basis too.
It is, of course, always possible to make fairly reliable short-term
predictions of social events from the standpoint of a mere observer,
by estimating what some people are doing or going to do, and what
others may do to stop them. If, for example, it looks either as if no one
can stop them, or as if no one wants to stop them, then a fairly con-
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
153
fident prediction can be made that what they are doing will be done.
Marx’s prediction went far beyond this, because it concerned the future
social-economic formation. Such a prediction can only be scientifically
grounded when it is grounded, first, on an accurate idea of the general
conditions governing the evolution of economic formations, and
second, on proposals for what sort of organisation is required to bring
the new formation into being and how the organisation should be
conducted. And that is how Marx’s prediction was grounded.
Marx did not speak as a prophet or fortune-teller, who tells people:
This is fated to happen, so prepare yourselves ! He spoke as a practical
organiser, who says, with good grounds for saying it: Do this — and
you will win.
Where, then, is the “historicism” in Marx, which Dr. Popper so
vehemently censures? Where is the vaunted discovery of “the plot”
which the moving fmger writes, of “the path” which people willy-
nilly tread, of “the destiny” which pursues us? And where is the
“unconditional prophecy”? Only in Dr. Popper’s fertile imagination.
Marx, the “famous historicist”, was not “an historicist” at all. He was
only, as Lenin said, “the first to put sociology on a scientific basis”.
Historicism, as defined by Dr. Popper, is an idealist concept. The
concept of “the plot” which is unfolded in history and “the path”
laid down for us, is the concept of a pre-existing idea which is realised
in time in the material world. It is, indeed, at bottom, a theological
concept of creation: “in the beginning was the Word”. Those who
think they can say what the future will be because they think they
know “the plot” and “the path” are frauds who pretend to powers of
prophecy not given to other men because they imagine themselves
to be en rapport with the eternal. Despite his rationalism and empirical
method, Hegel, the idealist, was certainly “an historicist” in Dr.
Popper’s sense. In opposing Hegel’s idealism, Marx opposed to
Hegelian “historicism” the scientific materialist theory of how men
make and will make history.
That Marx made use of “the historical method” is undoubted. As
Dr. Popper quite rightly says, Marx considered that “we can obtain
knowledge of social entities only by studying social changes”. And
it is a puzzle to know how else we could “obtain knowledge of social
entities”. Dr. Popper, however, proceeds to call Marx’s historical
method “historicist”, and says Marx studied social changes so as to
discover therein “rhythms, patterns, laws and trends” and so predict
the future. He makes out that Marx was the man who traces the
154
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
pattern in the unrolling carpet so as to predict what the next piece of
the pattern will be like. The prediction, of course, must be quite
groundless unless one has grounds to believe that the carpet was made
by a manufacturer who imposed a pattern on it. Human history is not
at all like an unrolling carpet.
Marx did not look at history to find the superimposed pattern.
He studied social changes to obtain knowledge of how men make such
changes, so as to work out how we can make changes now, and what
conditions they must fulfil to satisfy our needs. Like any scientist, he
wanted to find out what are the conditions of our lives and what we
can do about it. That was Marx’s historical method, and the object of
his applying it.
The crunch of this whole argument concerns Marx’s conception of
“the class struggle” and of the “necessity” and “inevitability” which,
he maintained, attaches to it and its outcome. Explaining to a corre-
spondent (J. Weydcmeyer, March 5, 1852) what he claimed to have
scientifically established by his historical method, Marx wrote:
“No credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in
modern society, nor yet the struggle between them. Long before me
bourgeois historians had described the historical development of the
struggle of the classes, and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy
of the classes. What I did new was to prove:
(1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular
historical phases of the development of production;
(2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the
proletariat;
(3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the
abolition of all classes and to a classless society.”
There you have it, Dr. Popper may say. What did I tell you? Marx
was an historicist. It may be in fact true that history is “the history of
class struggles”. And “bourgeois historians” who modestly attempted
to do no more than describe what happened, and did not aspire, like
historicists, to be prophets, may have done well to describe those class
struggles. But Marx goes farther. He asserts that class struggles are
“bound up with the development of production” and so constitute
the necessary pattern of history, and that the continuation of this
pattern will “necessarily” or “inevitably” lead to “the dictatorship of
the proletariat” and then to “a classless society”. What is this but
unconditional historical prophecy, derived from a claim to have dis-
covered the pattern, the rhythm, the plot and the plan of history?
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
155
Let us examine the plain meaning and implications of Marx's
statement of his position.
First of all, Marx in his theory of class struggle drew attention to
inescapable circumstances in which people have had, and still have, to
act; and to inescapable issues which they have had, and still have, to
settle. There is no help for it — there are the circumstances, there are
the issues, as objective facts of human life which cannot be evaded.
Because class divisions bring class antagonisms into the way people
have to get their livelihood, the class struggle has become necessary or
inevitable, in the sense of unavoidable. And Marx was able to explain
why this has happened. It is because the production relations into which
people entered once they began to raise their productive forces above
the level of the Stone Age have included class contradictions.
Exactly as Marx said, “men do not make their history just as they
please, they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves".
They have to enter into relations of production in order to use their
productive forces with the same necessity as they have to use their
hands to fashion their implements of production. Such things are, for
us, necessary, inevitable, unavoidable. To know what are our actual
circumstances, what are the issues, and what we can and cannot do
about them, science must distinguish the accidental in our circum-
stances from the necessary, the avoidable from the unavoidable. Not
to do so is to draw back from scientific analysis and decline to face
facts.
Secondly, having demonstrated the necessity or una voidability of
the class struggle, Marx concluded that the class struggle provides the
dynamic whereby historical issues are decided. The given relations of
production contain the class divisions, and action to change the
relations of production is action to change the class relations, that is,
class struggle.
And finally, his analysis of the capitalist production relations and
the class struggle under capitalism led to the conclusion that these
relations and the corresponding class struggle will persist until such
time as the working classes succeed in winning the political power to
institute social ownership and social appropriation, which means
expropriating the capitalist class. That is what he called “the dictator-
ship of the proletariat". This is the only way to settle the issue of adapt-
ing production relations to modem forces of production, and when it
is accomplished there will be “a classless society".
That “the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
156
proletariat” has the plain meaning that this is the only way in which
it can be finished. It cannot but go on until that outcome takes place.
From the very circumstances of its existence the working class cannot
but continue to oppose exploitation, and the only way it can get rid
of what it opposes is by winning political power and using that power
to reorganise social relations. And so, apart from what The Communist
Manifesto described as “the mutual destruction of the contending
classes” (which could take place nowadays in a nuclear war), or outside
intervention (such as an invasion from outer space, or a cosmic catas-
trophe), the dictatorship of the proletariat and the transition to a
classless society is the unavoidable, that is, necessary or inevitable,
outcome.
It is clear that this theory of the necessity of the class struggle and of
the dictatorship of the proletariat is no “unconditional prophecy” but
a straightforward scientific analysis. It is a scientific analysis which
supplies a programme and a guide to action for the working-class
struggle, based on sober scientific recognition of the whole social
situation. To argue that the theory is wrong it would have to be
argued that the general idea of adaptation of relations of production to
forces of production is wrong, and that the analysis of capitalist
relations of production is wrong. But Dr. Popper, with his critique of
“historicism”, dodges the issue by arguing that the very concepts
employed by the theory are “historicist” rather than scientific. He can
do this only by making out that the theory means something different
from what it says.
To know the meanings of words as they are used in statements one
must always take those words and statements in their context, with
their implications. The secret of the mad tea party type of discussion
lies in refusing to do this. Certain philosophers have tried to define
senses of the words “necessity” and “inevitability” which give us
absolute or “inexorable” necessity in nature and human affairs, and
absolute inevitability. A model for this was the well-known theorem of
Spinoza, that “the effect follows from the cause with the same neces-
sity as the three angles of a triangle make two right-angles”. It is
evident, however, that the word “necessity” has a different sense when
we talk about some event “necessarily happening” from what it has
when we talk about “the three angles of a triangle necessarily making
two right-angles”. This is evident, for one thing, because for angles to
add up to two right-angles is not an event ; and for another, because to
say “so and so necessarily happens” is not incompatible with saying
fflSTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
157
“under other imaginable circumstances something else could have
happened”.
For discussing what happens, the relevant categories are those of
possibility and impossibility — and these are the categories employed by
the sciences, including the science of society. Scientific thinking reaches
conclusions about what is possible and what is impossible relative to a
given set of circumstances . On the other hand, “inexorable necessity”,
“absolute inevitability”, “fate”, “destiny”, and so forth, are absolutes;
the inexorably necessary is supposed to happen, and “the destined path”
is inexorably taken, regardless of circumstances. Such absolutes are
alien to science, and apply only in the fantastic world of false abstraction.
Of “necessity” it may be remarked that the opposite of “impos-
sibility” is “possibility” and not “necessity”. In the context of pos-
sibility, as defmed by science, the word “necessary” has the sense of
“impossible without” or “impossible unless”. Thus the class struggle
necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat because that is
the only way it can finish, and because the class aim of emancipation
from exploitation is impossible to realise without establishing first a
system of political power to abolish exploitation.
Successful politics, then, demands the appreciation of necessity f that
is to say, of the necessary conditions without which the possible cannot
be achieved, but with the satisfaction of which it will be achieved.
And this appreciation is afforded by social and political science. The
essential teaching of Marxism for working-class politics is that emanci-
pation from exploitation and class struggle can only be achieved
through the dictatorship of the proletariat. Marx was talking about
unavoidable conditions of human action, about the only ways in which
unavoidable issues can be finally settled.
In the light of these considerations about necessity and inevitability,
and the preceding analysis of the logical character of scientific social
prediction, we can now, I think, detect the further misunderstanding
which Dr. Popper perpetrates when he concludes that Marx’s “histori-
cism” was in contradiction to what he calls Marx’s “activism”. Dr.
Popper says that to speak of what the class struggle “necessarily” leads
to, and to make a long-term prediction, is incompatible with the
“activist” point of view which promotes organisation for realising
the prediction and admits that without the organisation the prediction
will not come true. For if something is fated to happen, or will happen
with inexorable necessity, why advocate going to any trouble to
make sure it does happen?
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
158
“The historicist method”, writes Dr. Popper, “implies . . . that
society will necessarily change . . . through stages predetermined by
inexorable necessity.” Hence “it teaches the futility of any attempt to
alter impending changes; a peculiar variety of fatalism. . . . Admit-
tedly, die ‘activist’ exhortation ‘The philosophers have only inter-
preted the world in various ways: the point, however, is to change it’,
may find much sympathy with historicists. . . . But it is in conflict with
the most significant doctrines of historicism. For as we now see, we
may say: ‘The historicist can only interpret social development and
aid it in various ways; his point, however, is that nobody can change
it.’ ” (PH. 51-2).
Dr. Popper begins by merely begging the question, since, as we have
already seen, Marx’s method was not “historicist”, nor did his con-
clusions imply that historical necessity is “inexorable”. But he ends
widi sheer nonsense. When Marx said “the point is to change it”
he clearly meant that the point is, by understanding the way changes
operate, to bring about controlled changes. He did not mean to change
the ways things change. It is quite true that nobody can change the
basic ways human beings have to set about their affairs — we cannot
“change social development” in such a way as to do by will-power or
magic things which hitherto we have done with our hands; nor can
we change it in such a way that we do not have to adapt relations of
production to forces of production; nor, when modern forces of
production are fettered by capitalism, can we change this situation into
one in which capitalist relations cease to act as fetters. But this does not
imply that we cannot “change the world” in a controlled way, if
once we arrive at an objective analysis of circumstances and of the
means and limitations of our actions. It does not mean that we cannot
with the aid of scientific analysis effectively organise to “make
history”; though it does mean, of course, that we still cannot “make
it just as we please”. But no one but a fool would think that either
individually or collectively people have power to do “just as they
please”.
As regards the “peculiar variety of fatalism”, the judgment about
whether a scientific analysis of social circumstances implies “fatalism”
and “the futility of any attempt to alter impending changes” depends
entirely on one’s point of view and what changes one wants to make or
prevent. From the point of view of someone who proposes to rise on
the wings of a dove, the Newtonian theory of gravitation no doubt
propounds “a peculiar variety of fatalism”. It says you just can’t do it.
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
159
From the point of view of the capitalist class, Marx's theory is certainly
“fatalistic”. It says: You cannot contrive a managed capitalism, you
cannot do away with the class struggle, you cannot keep the system
going indefinitely. It does not go so far as to say, You can do nothing
to block socialist advance; but it does say, You can never block it once
for all, but will have to keep on blocking it until finally it blocks you.
As a further offence against capitalism, it offers practical advice to
socialists as to how to demolish capitalist blocks. From the point of view
of the working class, on the other hand, it is not “fatalist” at all. It
explains the situation, says what to do, and predicts that it will be done.
Dr. Popper’s critique does no more than voice the natural dis-
satisfaction of capitalist apologists with an objective analysis of capital-
ism and its possibilities of development. Any scientific analysis is bound
to be “fatalistic” from the point of view of those interested in doing
what cannot be done.
6. SCIENCE AND UTOPIA
After what has been said about “historicism”, it is perhaps unnecessary
to add much more in relation to Dr. Popper’s further allegations about
“essentialism”, “holism” and “utopianism”.
According to Dr. Popper, Marxist science claims to discover and
describe the “hidden reality or essence” which “must unfold itself in
change”. Well, Marxist science certainly does claim to discover and
describe processes going on amongst men in society, relations into
which men enter with nature and with one another, which men cannot
avoid entering into and conducting, and which do, inevitably, whether
men are aware of it or not, determine the character of the social
changes they make and condition their conscious activities. In this
respect, however, the discoveries of Marxist science about men are no
different in kind from the discoveries of any other empirical science
about anything else.
Chemists, for instance, observing chemical phenomena, and wishing
to explain them, try to discover processes and relations which deter-
mine and condition the phenomena. They try to discover “what is
really happening” when those phenomena happen. In this sense
chemistry (like all other branches of natural science) certainly claims to
discover “the hidden reality” or, as Dr. Popper has also expressed it,
“the realities which He behind the appearances”. But no one accuses
chemists of “essentialism”.
i do
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
Marx said that men always enter into relations of production in order
to deploy their forces of production, that this has involved them in
class struggles, and that “history is the history of class struggles’*. This
is how men carry on. Indeed, it is how men inevitably or necessarily
or “essentially” carry on, in view (as Marx and Engels said) of “the
physical organisation of the individuals and their consequent relation
to the rest of nature”. This fact was “hidden”, and it required some
research to uncover it. It was a scientific discovery, like other scientific
discoveries. It was no more a product of “methodological essentialism”
than any other scientific discovery. It was no more a discovery of “the
hidden essence” than any physical, chemical or biological discovery
discovers “essences”. Marx was not concerned with “essences” but
with real relations of human individuals, which, as he and Engels said
in The German Ideology, “can be verified in a purely empirical way”.
Finally, we come to “holism” and “utopianism”. According to
Dr. Popper, “holism is interested in the development, not of aspects
of social life, but of ‘society as a whole’ ”, and considers that one can
only properly understand particular “aspects” by seeing how they are
determined by “the whole”. And “utopianism” is bound up with
“holism”, because “the utopian” does not aim at changing particular
“aspects” but “the whole”.
Marx was certainly “interested in the development of society as a
whole”. He was interested “in the development of society as a whole”
in the same way as a biologist, for instance, is interested in the develop-
ment of the organism as a whole. That does not make either the
Marxist or the biologist into a “holist”. Neither is interested in the
“the whole” to the exclusion of “the aspects”, for each knows per-
fectly well that “the whole” is the product of the complex interactions
of the parts.
The biologist understands the organism as a complex of interrelated
living cells, and similarly the Marxist understands society as a complex
of interrelated living individuals. The living parts live in inter-
relation. Of course, it is their mode of interrelation which determines
the overall character and behaviour of the whole, of the organism or of
the society. And at the same time, the ways in which the parts are
interrelated, and interact and function, as parts of the whole, deter-
mines the specific character and properties of each part. A cell which is
a cell of some organism is a bone cell or a nerve cell or a muscle cell,
and so not the same as a cell that lives all on its own; just as an in-
dividual person gets his individuality from his being bom into,
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION l6l
educated in and functioning in a society, and would not have this
individuality outside society. An organism is not formed by fully-
fashioned. individual cells, each complete independently of the organ-
ism, coming together to form an organism; nor is a society formed by
fully-fashioned individuals, each a complete human person in-
dependently of social life, coming together to form a society. Further,
just as the organism grows and changes by a process of all the cells
functioning and relating themselves to one another to obtain the means
of life from the environment, so does society grown and change by a
process of all the individuals functioning and relating themselves to one
another to obtain the means of life.
Marx’s investigation of society led him, however, to conclude that a
society is nevertheless in important respects not much like a biological
organism. The individuals who make up society are human organisms,
so naturally the relations they enter into as human organisms obtaining
their means of life by social production are of an entirely different
kind from those the cells of a living organism enter into as cells of
that organism. His views about society were arrived at by investigating
the relations individuals enter into in forming a society, and not
deduced from some abstract comparison of societies with organisms.
His analysis of the social process, that is, of the relations individuals
enter into in order to obtain the means of life, and of the consequences
of their entering into those relations, led him to the conclusion that, to
“change society”, the key thing to do is to change the relations of
production in adaptation to productive forces. He concluded that then,
when that is done, “with the change of the economic foundation the
whole immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed”.
And this conclusion, a consequence of the analysis, is verified by the
facts of history — a verification which thus verifies the analysis of which
it is the consequence.
In what way is this conclusion from a normal type of scientific
analysis either “holist” or “utopian”? Marx did not say that one must
first change “the whole”, and that only by that means could one
change “the aspects”. Of course, it is as absurd or utopian to seek to
change “the whole” without studying and doing something about
“the aspects” as it is to seek to “understand the development of the
whole” without studying the aspects in their complex interrelation-
ship. What Marx did do, and what Marx did say, was precisely what
normal scientific method requires us to do and say. He studied the
various aspects of society to find out how the whole is constituted and
1 62
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
develops ; and out of this study he discovered what are the key relations
determining overall development, and said that, to change society,
one must concentrate on finding how to change those key relations.
On die other hand, it is not very difficult to see diat the opposition
which Dr. Popper has inferred, between Marx’s alleged “holism” on
the one hand, and the alleged “anti-holism” of science, is an absurdity.
Societies have in fact in common widi living organisms the feature diat
in each diere occur certain kinds of “life process” (for example, the
circulation of the blood in animals, and the processes of economic
exchange in commodity-producing societies), die disruption of which
is followed by die death or distintegration of die whole. It is essential
in any sort of scientific account of processes of this description that the
given process should be studied “as a whole” — to find out, that is to
say, how the parts interact in order to produce the whole process, and
why, if the whole disintegrates, die parts can no longer exist as be-
fore, being no longer parts of die whole. This entails, in particular,
investigating the mechanisms of “feed-back” by which what happens
in one part produces effects which react back on other parts, so as to
keep the whole intact. Clearly, such feed-back processes are character-
istic of the organism or of the society “as a whole”, and cannot be
studied except in the context of studying how “die whole” is main-
tained and develops. When Marx studied capitalist society, examining
at one level the processes of the circulation of capital, and at another
level those of the class struggle, he was studying how the “life process”
of society goes on under capitalism, was discovering the disruptions it
undergoes, and accordingly working out proposals as to what should
be done and what changes should be made in order to enable social
production and consumption to continue widiout these sorts of
disruptions.
So when we examine Marx’s methods, ideas and conclusions, we
find that all Dr. Popper’s clamorous allegations about “historicism”,
“essentialism”, “holism” and “utopianism”, which have so gready
impressed so many people whose prejudices made them want to be
impressed, are sheer misrepresentation and mydiology. In telling us
what Marxism means, Dr. Popper produces only a very stupid
travesty of Marxism. This, he asserts, amounts to a “devastating
criticism” and destroys all the scientific pretentions of Marxism once
for all.
Certainly, the Marx whom Dr. Popper puts up to prosecute for
ideological errors in Wonderland shows very litde understanding of
HISTORICISM AND HISTORICAL PREDICTION
I63
the concepts or methods of the sciences. But as we have seen, and as
we shall see again and again in what follows, the real Marx is perfectly
conversant with the methods of science and with various scientific
truths which Dr. Popper proclaims with the intention of confounding
him; and the real Marx drew scientific conclusions which Dr. Popper,
for all his parade of a truly scientific oudook, only misrepresents and
evades. It is in these misrepresentations and evasions contained in
Dr. Popper’s refutations of Marxism that misunderstandings about the
character of scientific method and of scientific conclusions are to be
found. As for Marx, he approached the investigation of social phe-
nomena, and the proposal of social remedies, in a thoroughly scientific
manner.
2
SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS
I. PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
Marx applied the normal methods of scientific inquiry to the study of
human society, and formulated the fundamental hypotheses under-
lying all social sciences. . His credentials are similar to those of any other
foundation-layer in other sciences. His propositions can all be tested
and, far from propounding a theoretical system to answer all questions
and account for everything finally and completely, he began an
investigation for others to carry further.
But that Marx applied scientific method, already well established
for the study of nature, to the study of society, does not mean that he
set about the job as though there were no difference between studying
natural and social processes. For different kinds of processes different
techniques of inquiry have to be devised, with different kinds of
hypotheses and appropriate methods for testing them. Social processes,
unlike mechanical, physical, chemical or biological processes, are
the results of self-conscious agents “acting with deliberation or
passion’. Possibly one may study how deliberations and passions are
engendered in individuals as one may study how, say, chemical reac-
tions are engendered. But the way in which the actions of human be-
ings make up the processes of society precludes the systematic investiga-
tion of the latter by artificially setting up experiments, as is done in, say,
chemistry. As Marx said in the Preface to Capital , here “neither
microscopes nor chemical reagents are of use. The force of abstraction
must replace both”.
Moreover, not only do the phenomena investigated thus differ in
the way they are brought about, but there is the further difference
that to investigate social activities is itself a social activity and introduces
a new factor into the phenomena investigated. Physicists have had to
reckon with the fact that to investigate electrons a beam of electrons is
employed, so that die investigation interferes with what is in-
vestigated. Nevertheless, to use electrons to investigate electrons does
not alter the ways electrons behave by creating for them the power to
do what they otherwise could not do. When people, on the other hand,
gain knowledge of dieir own social relations and their mode of
SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS 165
development, that gain of knowledge is the gain of a new power for
changing and developing their social relations.
That Marx succeeded where others had failed in finding how to
study society scientifically was due, amongst other things, to his
recognition that studying social processes is not at all the same thing as
studying natural processes.
In his observations about scientific method Dr. Popper has very
righdy and properly pointed out that the old idea of empiricist
philosophers, that science proceeds simply by accumulating “observa-
tions” and then making “inductions” from observations, does not
correspond to the logic of scientific inquiry. That is not how science
proceeds, or could proceed. “Science starts from problems, and not
from observations,” he writes. “The conscious task before the scientist
is always the solution of a problem through the construction of a
theory which solves the problem . . . every worth while new theory
raises new problems . . . the most lasting contribution to the growth of
scientific knowledge that a theory can make are the new problems
which it raises, so that we are led back to the view of science and of the
growth of knowledge as always starting from, and always ending with
problems — problems of an ever-increasing depth, and an ever-increas-
ing fertility in suggesting new problems” (CR. 222).
As I said at the beginning of this book, Marx laid the foundations
of social science by finding the right problems to tackle. To find the
problems of science is also to define the subject-matter of science.
Formulating the problems, Marxism at the same time enables us to
define the subject-matter of the inquiry. It thus becomes a true
scientific discipline.
Human society consists of nothing but interrelated human indivi-
duals. So naturally, social science is an inquiry into what human
individuals do, and how they are able to satisfy their needs in their
social intercourse. But the problems and subject-matter of social
science are not those of the physiology and psychology of human
individuals, their individual activities and reactions. Individuals create
and sustain society by entering into social relations with one another,
and it is the social relations which are the subject-matter of social science
and set its problems.
Dr. Popper has criticised under the name of “psychologism” the
view that the fundamental question for social science is to understand
the psychology of human individuals, and that all social phenomena
are direct effects of psychological causes. Crude examples of psycho-
1 66
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
logism are the theory that individuals need a father-figure, and so we
get monarchies; and are aggressive, and so we get wars. The fact is
that social phenomena, such as monarchies and wars, are consequent
upon the social relations into which individuals have entered. Indeed,
individuals acquire their human individuality only in social relations,
and behave differently in different social relations; though naturally,
as Marx and Engels also pointed out, to explain the social relations
and what people do in them we must always take into account “the
physical organisation of the individuals and their consequent relation
to the rest of nature”.
“Perhaps the most important criticism of psychologism is that it
fails to understand the main task of the explanatory social sciences”,
writes Dr. Popper (2-OS. 94). “This task is . . . the discovery and
explanation of the less obvious dependencies within the social sphere.”
He justly praises Marx for opposing psychologism. But what he fails
to note is that, opposing psychologism, Marxism has well defined
“the main task of the explanatory social sciences”, leading to “the
discovery and explanation of the less obvious dependencies”.
The main task of the explanatory social sciences is to describe and explain
social relations , in abstraction from individuals who enter into them.
The dependencies discovered and explained are the dependencies of
social relations. Clearly, to speak of social relations is to speak of what
numbers of unspecified individuals do in association. A social relation
is a relation of individuals. But to describe social relations does not
require specification of the individuals who enter into them, and
social relations persist while individuals come and go.
This shows, incidentally, why Marx spoke of “the force of abstrac-
tion” as replacing, in social science, microscopes and chemical reagents.
A relation cannot be laid out under a microscope, nor can it be separated
out and put to work like a chemical reagent. To study social relations
independent of the individuals who enter into them requires “the
force of abstraction”. Dr. Popper himself recognises this. “In the social
sciences ... we cannot see and observe our objects before we have
thought about them”, he says. “For most of the objects of social
science, if not all of them, are abstract objects . . (PH. 135). Marx
put it rather more clearly — but the point is the same.
As we have seen, Marx’s fundamental propositions for the social
sciences were arrived at by asking what is the necessary condition for
people to enter into social relations at all. People must socially produce
their material means of life, and enter into relations of production
SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS
167
corresponding to their social forces of production. Having reached
that conclusion, he went on to study how people change their relations
of production, and this entails the study of the interdependencies of
social relations in processes of social change. The key problems for
social science, he showed, are not problems of the actions and motiva-
tions of individuals but of the formation and interdependence of
social relations. Social relations change and develop. The problem of
how the change and development is brought about and of the laws
which govern it, the main problem of the scientific understanding of
society and its history, is the problem of analysing and sorting out the
interdependence of social relations. The laws regulating society and
its development are expressed as generalised statements of such
interdependence.
Social science thus abstracts from individuals and deals with social
relations. It is not concerned with individual but with aggregate
humanity — with the consequences of the interactions of large numbers,
and not with the individual peculiarities of this and that person. The
laws which it formulates, therefore, to the effect that some social
relations depend on others, which are laws governing all change in
social relations, are laws applying to aggregates of individuals, not to
the individuals who make up the aggregates. And (as I have already
said) the predictions which it enables us to make are predictions about
the overall consequences of large numbers of individual interactions.
All this seems, in principle, not only fairly clear but also in fair
accord with Dr. Popper’s own justified remarks about scientific
method. Dr. Popper, however, now proceeds to some further criticism
of Marx’s allegedly “historicist” views about the laws governing
social processes.
According to historicism, he says, ‘ ‘sociological laws, or the laws of
social life, differ in different places and periods” (PH. 5). Consequently
“the only universally valid laws of society must be the laws which
link up successive periods. They must be laws of historical develop-
ment which determine the transition from one period to another”
(PH. 41). Historicists, of whom Marx was a famous one, think they
have found the one great law which determines social development —
and this law is an “evolutionary” law, which says that social develop-
ment follows a certain course in the sequence of periods and the
transition from one period to another.
Such a claim, says Dr. Popper, is very easy to refute. “Can there
be a law of evolution?” he asks. “I believe that the answer to this
1 68
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
question must be ‘No’, and that the search for the law of the ‘unvarying
order’ of evolution cannot possibly fall within the scope of scientific
method, whether in biology or in sociology. My reasons are very
simple. The evolution of life on earth, or of human society, is a
unique historical process. Such a process, we may assume, proceeds
in accordance with all kinds of causal laws, for example, the laws of
mechanics, of chemistry, of heredity and segregation, of natural
selection, etc. Its description, however, is not a law, but only a singular
historical statement. Universal laws make assertions concerning some
unvarying order . . . i.e., concerning all processes of a certain kind . . .
But we cannot hope to test a universal hypothesis nor to find a natural
law acceptable to science if we are for ever confined to the observation
of one unique process. Nor can the observation of one unique process
help us to foresee its future development” (PH. 107-8).
But these remarks have no more relevance to the “sociological
laws” or laws of “social evolution” discovered by Marx than they
have to the laws of organic evolution discovered by Darwin.
Darwin’s explanatory theory about organic evolution did not
consist in propounding “the law” that organic evolution “invariably”
or “universally” proceeds from marine invertebrates, through fishes,
reptiles and mammals, to man. Of course, organic evolution on the
earth is a unique process, so there cannot be a “universal law” that it
“always” proceeds in one “unvarying order”. Darwin’s explanatory
theory was the theory of natural selection, which explains how the
unique evolution has taken place. Similarly, Marx’s explanatory theory
about social evolution did not consist in propounding the “law” that
society always develops from primitive communism, through slavery
(not to mention the Asiatic, Slavonic, Germanic and other odd modes
of production) to feudalism and capitalism. Society has not always
developed like that, it has only happened once. His explanatory theory
was a theory about the interdependence of social relations, with the
basic dependence of production relations on the forces of production
and of other relations on production relations, which not only explains
how the unique evolution has taken place but how to continue it in the
direction of satisfying human needs. Marx’s theory showed cogently
enough why social organisation had to start at the level of primitive
communism, how private property developed and what effects it had,
why certain conditions had to be achieved before others could be
entered into (for instance, why feudalism had to precede capitalism),
and, finally, that we can only solve the contradictions of capitalism
SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS 169
by advancing to socialism. But as usual, Dr. Popper refutes Marx by
making out that Marx talked “historicist” nonsense.
Having done so, however, Dr. Popper proceeds to talk nonsense
himself. Because social evolution is a unique process, he concludes
that * 'history is characterised by its interest in actual, singular, or
specific events, rather than in laws or generalisations ,, , and that this
distinguishes “historical” from “theoretical” or “explanatory”
sciences (PH. 143). The historian, interested in one unique sequence,
cannot hope to find any “universal law” governing the sequence.
But why ever not? The historical sequence is in fact governed by the
law that people always adapt their relations of production to their
forces of production. Why should not historians be interested in such
a law? It is universally true, and without it they cannot explain the
sequence but only describe it.
Finally, if one takes into account the laws which Marx actually
discovered (as distinct from those which Dr. Popper invents in order
to refute), it is evident that the idea that “sociological laws differ in
different places and periods” and that “the only universally valid laws
of society must be the laws which link up successive periods” is as
nonsensical as all the rest of Dr. Popper’s infelicitous lucubrations. The
basic law which Marx formulated is always valid, whether in the
development of a single “period” or in the transition from one to
another. Of course, when a specific set of social relations come into
being there are interdependencies between them which do not operate
in other circumstances, when those relations are not present (for
instance, under capitalism there are laws about, say, costs and profits
which came into operation only when capitalist relations began to be
formed). However, that means that “the laws which link up successive
periods”, far from being “the only universally valid laws”, operate
only in the specific link-up (for instance, the specific laws in operation
in the transition from feudalism to capitalism are peculiar to that
specific transition).
The way in which a unique unrepeatable irreversible process of
development can happen in accordance with universal laws is really
quite simple. It does not mean, as Dr. Popper makes out Marx “the
famous historicist” meant, that the process “always” follows a certain
order. That is obviously nonsense, for if it only happens once then it
does not “always” happen. The order of the process, the order in
which stage follows stage, the necessity of one stage preceding or
being followed by another, is the consequence of the working out of
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
170
the laws — it is what the laws explain and so is not itself “the law”.
The laws are of the form that certain relations always depend on
certain other relations. Whatever relations are formed, their laws
always operate. According to Marx’s theory of “sociological laws”
relations of production depend on forces of production; people
change their forces of production in the development of their pro-
ductive intercourse with nature, and so change their relations of
production ; and so the unique irreversible stage-by-stage development
of social-economic formations of human society takes place. This
makes good scientific sense and is empirically verifiable in terms of
what people do.
No more than the operation of sociological laws means that every
social event and social change is predetermined or “fated”, does it
mean that people are moved about like “pawns” in the grip of historical
necessity. On the contrary, as Engels said, and as we know from
experience anyway, “nothing happens without a conscious purpose,
without an intended aim”, and people face choices and act of their
own volition. But relying on certain productive forces, to live by
which they have entered into certain production relations, what
people do and can do — what they intend to do and what actually
comes of their doing it — is conditioned by the relations into which
they have entered with nature and with one another for obtaining
their means of life, and the interdependencies of these relations. That
is an objective condition of life from the limitations of which we
can no more escape than we can from the limitations of our mortal
bodies. But the better we understand such objective conditions, the
less do they appear as limitations. The better we understand what
cannot be done the better do we understand what can be done, and
how to do it.
Speaking of the conscious volitional character of human actions,
Engels went on to say (Ludwig Feuerbach , Chapter 4), that nevertheless
“that which is willed happens but rarely; in the majority of instances
the numerous desired ends cross and conflict with one another, or
these ends themselves are from the outset incapable of realisation or
the means for attaining them are insufficient”. Consequently “the
many individual wills active in history for the most part produce
results quite other than those they intended — often quite the opposite;
their motives therefore in relation to the total result are likewise only
of secondary significance”.
To explain what happens in history it is not enough to say that
SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS
171
people act from certain motives. Their actions are, of course, motivated;
and the explanation of what happens includes the description of the
motivations. But motives “cross and conflict” and, as it works out,
what happens is, more often than not, what no one intended. To
explain both human motivations, and the results, both intended and
unintended, of their motivated actions, it is also necessary to take
into account the interdependence of social relations, which exhibit
laws quite independent of anything people may intend or think.
In remarking that the task of the social sciences is “the discovery
and explanation of the less obvious dependencies within the social
sphere”, Dr. Popper proceeds to conclude that “the main task of the
social sciences ... is the task of analysing the unintended social
repercussions of intentional human actions” (2-OS. 95; he must
think this definition definitive, for it is repeated in italics in CR.
34 2 )-
This conclusion only illustrates once again Dr. Popper’s unfortunate
tendency to talk nonsense. Why ever should the task of the social
sciences be restricted to tracing the unintended social repercussions of
intentional actions? For the better we can discover and explain “the
less obvious dependencies within the social sphere” (dependencies of
social relations), the better can we judge what can and cannot be
done, and so the less will the social repercussions of our intentional
actions be unintended. Put together, Dr. Popper’s two definitions of
the task of the social sciences make nonsense. For success in carrying
out the first task eliminates the second.
In studying the laws of development of society (or “dependencies
within the social sphere”), and pointing out that their operation
explains the results of human actions irrespective of intentions, Marx
and Engels made it quite clear that, once these laws are understood, it
becomes possible to project plans of action, based on an objective
analysis of circumstances, in which the results will be brought more
and more, in a controlled way, within the scope of the intentions. As
with other sciences, success in social sciences increases our power to
fit our intentions to our capabilities and to bring about what we
intend. All knowledge is power. It follows that knowledge about our
own social activities makes possible a change in the character of our
social activities. When we have enough of it, and have built an
organisation for using it, we can base our intentions on knowledge of
our circumstances and needs, and carry them out.
172
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
2. SOCIAL SCIENCE AND POLITICS
Politics, it has been well said, is the art of the possible. This description
of politics makes it clear how social science applies in politics. For in
science we discover what is possible and what is not, and how what is
possible gets brought about. In social science, the study of social
relations, we discover the conditions and possibilities of human action
in the management of social life. We discover how given social
relations limit possibilities. We discover the conditions for changing
social relations and what possibilities such changes open up. We
discover how social relations establish class distinctions and divergent
or antagonistic class interests, and what possibilities there are for the
pursuit of those interests.
Politics is a social activity — an art or a science or however one likes
to describe it — which certain people undertake in definite social
circumstances on behalf of definite interests. It is concerned with
government, with the management of people by means of the control
and direction of institutions.
In politics divergent interests are pursued. It is a struggle between
political rivals, each with his own policy or his own politics. And,
underlying all other political divisions, there are always the divisions
of class interests. For the most part politics consists of a complicated
game of move and counter-move, in which each party seeks some
immediate advantage or to avoid some immediate danger; and while
all parties may claim a far-sighted vision of what they will achieve in
the future, in practice they simply follow their noses as they smell out
where their interest lies. The political struggle is waged in the name of
all kinds of principles, ideals and universal ends. But in effect each party
pursues its particular sectional interest. As Marx caustically observed
in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Chapter 3) : “As in private
life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself
and what he really is and does, so one must distinguish still more the
phrases and fancies of parties from their real interests, their conception
of themselves from their reality . . . Thus the Tories of England long
imagined they were enthusiastic about Monarchy, Church and the
beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung
from them the confession that they are only enthusiastic about
rent.
Political parties, in the form of more or less permanent organisa-
tions with membership, officials, programme and rules, are products of
SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS
173
modem democracy. Combinations of place-seekers are as old as
government itself. But with democratic institutions, rulers and would-
be rulers had to do more than gang up together in order to rule. In
many cases they have felt and (judging from television performances)
some continue to feel the same disdain for the electorate as Shakespeare
depicted Coriolanus as feeling when he had to “stand here and beg
of Hob and Dick” and wished the plebs would “wash their faces and
keep their teeth clean”. But more astute than Coriolanus, they have
managed to build party organisations to nominate rulers, campaign
for support of them, and make Hob, Dick and their wives think their
views are being consulted.
Parties are not necessarily formed with the open intention of promot-
ing the interests of any one class. But they can be neither stable nor
long-lasting except as political organisations of a class. A party which
no interest could regard as its own would stand little chance in politics
compared with the parties of each interest. For only when the ideas of a
party and the policies it carries out correspond near enough to a class
interest is the support forthcoming to maintain the party organisation.
A party is kept up by a class interest, and bases its practical calculations
of policy on the promotion of that interest in interaction with others.
Hence the complicated interplay between politicians concerned with
office and citizens concerned with the uses to which the power of
office is put, leads to the result that a class sets up its own political
parties, and political parties act as the political representatives of
classes. By means of politics a class promotes its economic interest, and
by the control of political power establishes and augments its economic
power.
In these conditions Marx and Engels stated, as long ago as 1850 in
the Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League , the need
“to establish an independent . . . workers' party and make each section
the central point and nucleus of workers' societies in which the
attitude and interests of the proletariat will be discussed independently
of bourgeois influences”.
The object of political parties is power — to hold office in the power-
institutions so as to carry out a policy. Without a political party a class
cannot win power. Various organisations which work for the economic
interest of a class, or which in connection with this or that item of
public policy aim at bringing pressure to bear on those who hold
power, or which undertake ideological and cultural work, are of vital
importance in the life of a class. But their action is dispersed and, with-
174
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
out a political party, does not add up to a struggle for power. So a
class which is to come to power, and so be able to transform society in
its own image and in its own interests, must organise politically.
Accordingly in Rule 7 a of the First International, drafted by Marx
and adopted at The Hague Congress in 1872, it was laid down that “in
its struggle against the collective power of the possessing classes the
proletariat can act as a class only by constituting itself a distinct political
party, opposed to all the old parties formed by the possessing classes”.
Politics is often described as a dogfight: the introduction of science
into this dogfight was a consequence of the birth of the working-class
movement and of socialist politics. The working-class movement
brought something new into politics, because it meant that for the
first time the masses of working people could constitute a permanently
organised political force in opposition to their rulers, and this in turn
meant new forms of democratic organisation and new ideas of demo-
cratic government. To begin with, the working-class organisations
tended to seek no' more than immediate demands for improved work-
ing and living conditions, and to support one or other of the traditional
ruling parties in pursuit of these. But with working-class organisation,
itself the natural product of the development of modem forces of
production, the aim became practical of finally doing away with all
exploitation of man by man, and planning social production for the
satisfaction of the needs of all.
So the science of socialism was evolved, to demonstrate the practi-
cality of this aim and the means to achieve it. The working-class
movement could not successfully pursue its long-term interest unless
it based its politics on science.
The theory of scientific socialism had to be worked out and its
fundamental principles stated; then to be learned, studied, applied,
tested in practice and developed. The working out of the theory can be
said to have been commissioned by the newborn working-class
movement, in as much as it was that movement that needed the theory
and groups of workers began to discuss the problems of revolutionary
policy and organisation. But the synthesis of vast data drawn from
experience into a scientific theory could not emerge as it were sponta-
neously out of the mass movement itself, since it required long and
exacting work of scientific research. This work could only be done by
scholars, by intellectuals. The men who originally worked on the
theory did not themselves work in factories or mines. But they could
do the job only because they were aware of what went on in factories
SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS
175
and mines, and devoted their activity entirely to the cause of the
workers’ movement with which they identified themselves. They were
able to create the theory of scientific socialism because, first, they were
from the outset concerned with the injustices and contradictions of
society as they found it and were resolved to fmd a solution; second,
they could draw on the past heritage of progressive science and
philosophy and could see at the same time the insufficiency of past
ideas to the present problems; and third, they recognised in the
working-class movement the movement of the future. The founders
of scientific socialism were not separate from the working-class
movement, teachers who stepped in to give instruction, but workers
in it and leaders of it. They worked out the theory for the movement,
introduced it into the movement, and then fought for its acceptance
and understanding.
Scientific socialism, like other scientific theory, can only be
developed in its use. Its development could take place only in the
working-class movement, and the movement could only become
united and capable of achieving political power when it had made the
theory of scientific socialism its own. A political party is the only
organisation which can thus carry science into the movement. And
only by doing so can a political party provide the political leadership
for the mass movement to win power and build socialism.
A working-class party should consciously set out to serve the
interests of the class. As Marx and Engels made clear in The Communist
Manifesto , this does not mean, in the case of a party capable of leading
the class to win power, that it bases its policy on nothing but the
clamour of immediate and sectional demands, but that it “brings to
the front the common interest” and “in the movement of the present
takes care of the future of the movement”.
The party’s standpoint is a class standpoint. It does not claim to adopt
a god’s-eye point of view in forming its judgments, but the point of
view of the working class. This does not mean, however, that the
party accepts the ideas of workers, whatever they may be. On the
contrary, many ideas in workers’ heads are implanted there by their
rulers, or are merely the crude reflections of degrading conditions of
life and help to perpetuate them. So the workers’ party must try to
lead workers to change their ideas. For Marxism, a class standpoint in
ideas is not the mere echo of the ideas which most members of a class
happen to entertain at a particular time and place. A class standpoint in
ideas means developing ideas in conformity with the objective require-
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
I76
ments of the class for developing its way of life, its means of liveli-
hood.
In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Chapter 3) Marx
explained that “the relation between the political representatives of a
class and the class they represent” consists in the fact that the former
work out in their ideas “the same problems and solutions to which
material interests and social position drive the latter practically”. In
the case of the political representatives of the small-trading class, about
whom Marx was writing, he concluded that this meant that “in their
minds they do not get beyond the limits which the class does not get
beyond in life”. In the case of working-class ideas it is not so much a
matter of not getting beyond limits as of getting beyond them.
Whether most workers know it or not, the “problems and solutions
to which material interests and social position” drive the working
class are problems of escaping from exploitation and solutions by
making social production serve social welfare. And these are the
problems and solutions which the political representatives of the class
have to work out in ideas. Whereas the other classes are driven to try
to keep inside the limits within which they live, and their political
representatives wear blinkers so as not to see beyond them, the work-
ing class is driven to try to get out of the limits within which it lives,
and the job of its political representatives is to think out the corres-
ponding problems, the solution of which demands the strict metho-
dology of science.
Marx maintained, then, that a successful political party of the
working class must make itself the bearer of scientific socialist theory,
and must preserve it, work it out and introduce it, and the practice of
being guided by it, into the entire working-class movement. Thus it
must become the vehicle for achieving what he maintained was the
first essential for the victory of socialism — the combination of scientific
socialism with the mass working-class movement.
Scientific inquiry always discloses possibilities for human action. For
those interested, it tells how to do things they did not know how to do
before. It makes possible practical achievements scarcely dreamed of,
because it discloses the actual conditions for these things being brought
about and how to bring them about.
Marxist science shows the working classes how it is possible to achieve
emancipation . This was not known before social relations were in-
vestigated scientifically and the laws of development of society
disclosed. Marxist science shows the necessary conditions for emancipa-
SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS
177
tion — and one of the conditions is that the movement should base its
practice on scientific theory and that “socialism should become a
science”.
Marxism shows further that the emancipation movement of the
modem working classes is the final phase of a series of class struggles
which began when the development of property first divided society
into antagonistic classes. Summing up the conclusions of The Com -
munist Manifesto in his Preface to the 1888 English edition, Engels
wrote: “The history of class struggles forms a series of evolutions in
which, today, the stage has been reached where the exploited and
oppressed class — the proletariat— cannot attain its emancipation from
the sway of the exploiting and ruling class — the bourgeoisie — without,
at the same time, and once for all, emancipating society at large from
all exploitation, oppression, class distinction and class struggles.”
Emancipation has its necessary conditions, and its practical possibility
can only be realised if action, based on scientific appreciation of
necessity, observes them. One such condition is the waging of class
struggle. Another is to carry on the struggle to the point where “all
exploitation, oppression, class distinction and class struggles” are
deliberately removed.
Marxist science, then, applies in politics because it works out how to
win working-class emancipation and thereby emancipate the whole of society.
Now of course, a scientific demonstration is — a demonstration. If
it is valid it is valid not only for some people but for everyone, just
as if a statement is true it is true, whether anyone chooses to believe
it or not. Nevertheless, it is only for the working classes that Marxist
science demonstrates how to win emancipation, because they are the
people who need it and are interested in it. That does not mean that
it true only for one class and not for another. It is true for anyone, but
not everyone is interested in this truth. It shows the possibility to those
interested in it and whose action is required to realise it. What Marxism
says is as true for the ruling classes as for the working classes, as the
former occasionally find to their cost. But while it shows the working
classes how to do away with exploitation, far from showing the
ruling classes how to perpetuate exploitation it shows that to do so is
impossible — and this truth is not and cannot be acceptable to them.
Naturally, therefore, social science , with its applicability in politics ,
becomes a “class” science. This is another and very important way in
which, as Marx well understood, it differs in its methods and applica-
tion from the natural sciences.
178
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
3. CONDUCT AND AIMS OF MARXIST POLITICAL PARTIES
According to Dr. Popper, Marxism applies (or claims to apply) in
politics by demonstrating, not what it is possible to do, but what must
inevitably take place. Dr. Popper's Marxists base politics on prophecy.
They are a kind of political astronomers. For just as astronomers might
say: “There is going to be an eclipse of the sun, so turn on the lights",
Dr. Popper’s Marxists say: “The revolution is coming, so close the
ranks."
But in politics one has to reckon, first and foremost, with facts, with
actual circumstances and their practicalities. The object of politics is to
alter circumstances. What Marxists actually base politics on is a
scientific analysis of the circumstances in modern society. Marx
scientifically investigated the character of capitalist exploitation and
its effects, thus demonstrating the issues of the class struggle in modem
society and the real and practical possibilities and alternatives for the
alteration of our circumstances which this poses. Either capitalism
continues with all its consequences in the perpetuation of poverty,
conflicts, oppressions and wars, or the working class carries on its
class struggle to the point of overcoming capitalism and building
socialism. Marxism scientifically demonstrates the necessary conditions
for the latter. Emancipation from all exploitation and class struggles
can be achieved, and can only be achieved, through the dictatorship
of the proletariat. And so Marxism further works out the practical
strategy and tactics of the struggle for working-class power and
becomes the guiding theory of revolutionary political parties.
Dr. Popper regards as highly unscientific the Marxist way of
understanding politics in terms of class struggle. Leaving the classes
out of account, he presents politics instead in simple terms of “power"
and control of power. Some people acquire power over others, so as
to act as rulers ; and politics is a matter of the acquisition of this power,
and of its use and the control of its use. Men almost invariably abuse
power unless their use of it is controlled. The most important thing in
politics is therefore to control the use of power, for the ruled to find
how to control the rulers so as to stop abuses of power. Democratic
politics is, he says, the politics of the control of the rulers by the
ruled.
From this point of view, he expatiates in scarifying terms about the
political consequences of the Marxist error of basing politics on
prophecy. Marxists believe themselves destined to come to power.
SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS
179
They therefore brush aside all questions of the democratic control of
power and advocate dictatorship. If they succeed in their violent
endeavours to achieve what they believe to be the decree of destiny,
what happens is that a group of men, or perhaps a single “strong
man”, is put into power and all control over power collapses. But as
Lord Acton warned: “All power corrupts, and absolute power
corrupts absolutely.” What we inevitably get is a violent dictatorship,
or tyranny. There ensues “the rule of the strong man” (2-OS. 151),
who proceeds forcibly “to control and stereotype interests and beliefs”
(PH. 90), sets up “the Inquisition, the Secret Police” (i-OS. 200), and
“civilisation disappears” (CR. 344).
I shall discuss in subsequent chapters, and in some detail, questions
about democracy and dictatorship, and about the democratic principles
concerning the conduct of popular organisations and their control over
state power for the purposes of the dictatorship of the proletariat,
which are implied by Marxism contrary to what Dr. Popper alleges.
Here it may suffice to say that Dr. Popper talks of “power” and
“control of power” in abstraction from the actual conditions of class
interests and class struggles under which power is acquired, exercised
and controlled. Marxism, on the other hand, in the discussion of
political as of all other questions, undertakes “the concrete analysis of
concrete conditions”. Dr. Popper adopts a very abstract conception of
political power, as the power of some individuals (the rulers) over
other individuals (the ruled). He opposes this as “science” to Marx’s
political analysis of class struggles, which he calls “prophecy”. Such a
comparison only demonstrates Dr. Popper’s own disregard for scientific
method when it comes to discussing politics.
According to Marx, politics in class-divided society is class struggle.
Political parties represent the interests of classes, and the control and
acquisition of power by political parties serves class interests. A work-
ing-class party must seek to win political power, and to organise
control over power and use power to reconstitute society on the basis
of socialism. Working-class political parties can and must lead the
masses of the people to the building of a new world, in struggle against
the old. Their politics consists in giving political leadership in the
struggle to end exploitation of man by man.
By and large, this is what political parties that base their policies on
Marxism have done and are doing. Marxists have hammered out in
practice guiding fines for the conduct of effective working-class parties.
The party must not only educate people in socialist ideas, but cam-
i8o
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
paign for socialist policies, agitating on the job and in the localities
against every injustice, giving practical leadership in mass organisation;
and when power is won, the party becomes itself the leading mass
organisation through which power is both exercised and controlled.
The party must train up the leading personnel, the individual leaders,
whom the movement can trust in the fight against the exploiting
classes, and whom it can entrust with office when the power of the
exploiting classes is broken.
Dr. Popper expresses strong objections to the activities of Marxist
political parties — though naturally enough, none of his objections is
new. According to him, any political party that bases its policies on
Marxism is outside the pale in a civilised community. The tolerance
which democrats in principle extend to the expression of opinions
should never be stretched to countenancing the subversive activities of
Communists. For “in a democracy the full protection of minorities
should not extend to those who violate the law, and especially not to
those who incite others to the violent overthrow of the democracy”
(2-OS. 161). Communists, believing that their own dictatorship is
decreed by fate and will represent the consummation of mankind’s
historical destiny, care nothing for laws and proceed lawlessly and
violently to attempt to fulfil what they consider to be their historical
mission. Worse still, if such parties get into power they proceed to
“stereotype interests and beliefs” and to introduce “the Inquisition,
the Secret Police”. They ought to be firmly put down.
We must, of course, plead guilty to opposing laws which protect
exploiting classes. But as for lawlessness and violence, to establish
socialism does not entail replacing law by lawless violence but the
reform of laws. Again, in building a socialist society “interests” will
certainly be “stereotyped” to the extent that the diversity of interests
as between capitalists and wage-workers, and as between competing
capitalists, will disappear and a greater community of interests will
emerge. Through education and propaganda the authorities must
certainly endeavour to propagate beliefs corresponding to socialist
interests and to oppose beliefs counter to them. And a police force
must certainly be maintained strong enough to defend the socialist
regime against attempts to disrupt or overthrow it. The objections,
however, are to fighting against exploitation, to laws which prohibit
exploitation, to opposing cherished beliefs of the old order accustomed
to the full protection of the establishment, and to taking police measures
to protect the new.
SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS
181
But at the same time as he echoes all the customary execrations of
anti-Communist propaganda, Dr. Popper still contrives to preserve an
air of scientific objectivity. He does not say that Communists are evil-
minded persons intent on getting power for themselves and injuring
their fellow men. On the contrary, he stresses again and again that
many Communists are sincere and mean well, and that their aim is
universal happiness. The evil happens because the actual effects of
acting on Communist principles are vastly different from Communist
intentions. They intend to bring “heaven on earth”, but “only succeed
in making it a hell”. The critique of Marxism is a case of “analysing
the unintended repercussions of intentional human actions”. Quite
inevitably or, at all events, by the objective sequence of cause and
effect, the effect of basing politics on Marxist theory is that the actions
taken bring evil consequences.
The effect of Marx’s alleged belief in historical destiny, Dr. Popper
suggests, is to make Communists think themselves infallible, chosen by
fate to fulfil a mission and destroy every opponent. Communists will
therefore listen to no criticism, pity no suffering, and spare no violence
to attain their ends. They scorn all methods of democracy which entail
consultation, discussion and paying attention to what other people say,
and instead favour and themselves fall victims to the open terrorist
dictatorship of a Communist “strong man” or group of power-
hungry leaders.
That, he evidently thinks, is what happened in the Soviet Union —
an awful warning to the rest of mankind. There a “strong man” was
placed in supreme power. Stalin’s word was law, and any criticism of
his policies, and even the least doubt, was treated as a hostile act. His
secret police engaged in arbitrary arrests, imprisonment without trial
or the rigging of trials, cruelties, tortures and executions.
That all was not well in the Soviet Union, and that evils were
perpetrated by Communists, causing great and unnecessary suffering
to thousands of individuals, is an established fact. Dr. Popper would
give us to understand that such evils are inevitable . It is he himself,
indeed, with his “unforeseen consequences”, who tries to confound
us with a doctrine of inevitability — the inevitability of the disappoint-
ment of revolutionary socialist hopes which, if they are not crushed
by defeat, are even more completely frustrated by the tyranny which
inevitably takes over after a revolutionary victory. But of course,
Dr. Popper is no “bistoricist”. He only makes a “conditional
prediction”: If you put a ketde on the fire it will boil, and if you let
182
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
Marxists get into the government they will turn it into a bloodthirsty
tyranny.
What Marxists derive from the Marxist theory of social relations
and of how social changes are brought about is, however, a practical aim
for political action, and the strategy and tactics of political struggle,
derived from knowledge of the necessary conditions for realising the
aim. Socialism is presented by Marxism as a political programme.
And Marxism is scientific socialism because it works out the socialist
political programme on the basis of an objective review of facts, and
not of any mythology about the destiny of mankind ; and because it
makes proposals for satisfying real interests rather than for realising a
utopian ideal.
Marx and Engels said that “history is the history of class struggles”.
This statement, true of history ever since class divisions appeared in
human society, is incompatible with any “historicist” doctrine about
events moving with inexorable necessity in accordance with a pre-set
pattern. For class struggles are waged by human individuals, in the
conditions of the social relations in which they find themselves. As
Marx and Engels recognised whenever they set themselves to describe
any actual class struggle, the actual events proceed from the action of
the personalities and passions of the individuals engaged in them,
conditioned by and operating in the given circumstances of the time.
As for the role of working-class parties in events, what they do is
affected by their circumstances and stage of political development,
including their illusions, mistakes, uncertainties, fears and fanaticisms,
and not by decrees of destiny of which they have been vouchsafed
infallible knowledge. How well they succeed in their aims, and what
mistakes they commit and setbacks they experience in pursuit of them,
is decided by a multitude of human causes, which historians can trace
out if they look for them.
To win through to emancipation, people must organise and must
learn from experience. From this element of political necessity comes the
vital role of working-class political parties. First, the party must become
the well-organised leadership of the whole movement. It must lead, not
by continually disputing the right to exist of other parties and by
establishing a political monopoly (for, as The Communist Manifesto
declared, “the Communists do not form a separate party opposed to
other working-class parties”), but by virtue (as the Manifesto expressed
it) of “clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and
the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement”. Second, the
SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS
I8 3
party must concentrate in itself the lessons of the movement’s experience ,
so that through it the whole movement learns by experience and learns
from mistakes . Only in a political party does the movement create
leadership and a leadership that learns systematically.
Marxists have always been at great pains to examine and to classify
the various types of mistake to which working-class political parties
may be prone. A party may sell out the workers’ interests by com-
promising with exploiting classes, even to the extent of upholding
their interests against those of the workers ; on the other hand, it may
be so “ uncompromising” that, proclaiming mere revolutionary
phrases, refusing to take circumstances into account, neglecting to
build solid organisation and to find allies, it leads the workers to
defeat. A party may give up or “revise” the theory of Marxism about
the class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat; on the other
hand, it may turn it into a mere dogma, into a mere set of formulas
supposedly applicable in the same way at all times and in all circum-
stances. Again, a party may lead the workers of one nation into
conflict with those of another by placing what are represented as
national interests before those of the common interests of all working
people; on the other hand, it may alienate itself from its own people
by not recognising, or even despising, their national interests and
sentiments. There are examples enough of all these sorts of mistakes.
They arise from the difficulties and dilemmas of the actual conditions
of practical struggle.
It is natural enough (and one might say, indeed, inevitable) that
when Marxist parties make mistakes and get into difficulties their
enemies are quick to proclaim that whatever evils ensue are all the
fault of Marxism, and go on proclaiming it for years afterwards. More
than that, when Marxist parties proceed to put right their mistakes,
their enemies see the chance of scoring a further point and exclaim :
Aha, you admit then that your Marxism did you no good and only
led you into errors !
So it was with the abuses of power, accompanying some mistakes
in economic policies, which took place in the Soviet Union under
Stalin’s leadership. No Communist and no Marxist is going to make
excuses for the evils that then took place. There took place distortions
of Marxist theory, mistakes in economic management, bureaucratic
brutalities, arbitrariness and crimes in methods of government, which
hindered not helped the building of socialism. They could not have
taken place except as a result of abuses of power by individuals,
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
184
violations of the rule of law, and violations of the democratic conduct
of revolutionary organisations, including the leading one, the Com-
munist Party. Dr. Popper censures them no more severely than was
done subsequently at the Twentiedi Congress of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union. But unlike the Marxists, he makes no
attempt at analysing in what exactly these evils consisted, how they
came about, or what was the remedy. He leaves out of accoimt every
consideration about how violence of every kind is instigated and
organised on a mass scale by fascism and imperialism, and instead
denounces violence as the inevitable consequence of the Marxist
doctrine of dictator ship”. He then concludes that the universal
remedy is ‘‘democracy” on the model of the frequently violent and
dictatorial practice of the so-called “free world”.
He may perhaps claim credit for denouncing bad practices for
which M?;xists were responsible at a time when Marxists failed to
denounce or to remedy them. Let him ! Marxists claim credit for the
fact that, amid bitter struggle against both internal and external
enemies, socialism was built in the Soviet Union and established on a
firm foundation which completely confoimds all the prognostications
of anti-Marxists. Outside the Soviet Union we claim the credit that
we gave the one socialist country unstinting support, opposed its
enemies and refused to join them, and fought the injustices, oppressions
and violence of capitalism even though this involved us in the guilt
of injustices, oppressions and violence on our own side. Finally,
Marxists claim credit for setting to work to get evils which took place
under socialism put right — not by the method which many have
advised as the remedy for “tyranny”, namely, overthrowing socialist
government, but by bringing the methods of socialist government
into line with the teacliings of Marxism. This reforming process is still
going on hi the Soviet Union, though not smoothly or without con-
flicts, setbacks, errors and injustices.
Dr. Popper apparently regarded malpractices in the Soviet Union,
at the time he wrote The Open Society and its Enemies and The Poverty
of Historicism f as verifications of his assertion that Marxism means
tyranny. The exposure of these malpractices at the Twentieth Congress
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union might then be regarded
as a final verification from evidence presented by Marxists themselves.
But Dr. Popper has insisted that what counts is not verification but
falsification. And what has actually happened has finally falsified his
allegations. He could cite various facts as “confirmations” of his
SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS
185
assertion that Communist government is tyrannical. The actual
development of socialism and the struggle for socialism falsifies it.
And the actual teachings of Marx likewise falsify his allegations that
Marxism is a doctrine of historical destiny which advocates violence
and tyranny.
A rational judgment on Marxist politics can only be reached by
taking cognisance, among other things, of the history of Marxist
parties — what they have done and are doing. Insisting on the fallacy
of “the historical method”, Dr. Popper seems to prefer to base his
judgment rather on a sweeping assessment of what he takes to be the
essence of Marxist teachings. Essentially, he says, Marxism is dogmatic
and anti-democratic. As he himself has explained is usual with judg-
ments about “essences”, he then contrives to argue in a way to evade
falsification. If a Marxist party is guilty of wrong doing, it is said to
be acting in character ; if it does well, then it is merely acting out of
character.
Yet the way Marxist parties actually behave and develop gives the
lie to what he says about Marxist politics. He in fact cites very little
about what Marxist parties have actually done to prove his points.
His chief citation is worthy of a passing remark, however. He deals
at some length with the policies of Marxist parties towards fascism
at the time of the rise of Hitler to power in Germany, and informs us
that “the Communists did not fight when the fascists seized power”
because they thought the fascist dictatorship “could only bring the
revolution nearer . . . After all, since the revolution was bound to
come, fascism could only be one of the means of bringing it about”
(2-OS. 164-5).
Admittedly, a certain amount of “falsification of history” has on
occasion been done by Marxists themselves, for polemical purposes
(though such polemics do not advance the cause of Marxism). Bad
as this was, it bears little comparison with the falsification of history
by anti-Marxists, of which the above citation provides an example.
The Marxist method of studying what happens puts the record
straight, where it is falsified by anti-Communist propaganda.
The history of the international labour movement shows that the
progress of Marxist parties is by no means the triumphal progress of
the infallible “Party Line” which might be deduced from the doctrine
of historical destiny Dr. Popper tries to foist onto us. There are many
mistakes and many setbacks, as might be expected in real life. At the
same time, the Marxist view that “history is on our side”, or that
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
18 6
Marxist parties are indestructible and sure to win in the end, is justified
by the actual conditions of class struggle in the modern world. For
in general, what is necessary to be done gets done in the end. And in the
conditions of capitalism, the development of revolutionary parties
and the persistence of their activities up to the eventual abolition of
exploitation of man by man is a necessity. To oppose exploitation, to
oppose oppression, to oppose war, to oppose the threat of nuclear
war today, and to carry on economic and political struggle until
society is so ordered as to be able to use human resources for human
welfare, is a necessity. We must organise for these purposes. If mistakes
are made, they must be put right. If defeats are sustained, the struggle
must still go on.
So it is that in the European labour movement the dominance of
reformist policies has of necessity been countered by the rise of genuine
revolutionary parties, the Communist Parties. The victory of the
Russian Revolution was a decisive factor leading to the growth and
consolidation of the international Communist movement, and to the
development of the great movement for liberation from imperialism
throughout the colonial world. Conditions are always changing with
time, however. And they are not the same now as they were before
the Second World War. We have to frame new policies accordingly.
In this connection deep divisions and splits appear over policies —
including, at the moment, a division within the world Communist
movement, turning to a great extent on questions of peace and the
coexistence of socialism and capitalism, on methods of transition to
socialism and the strategy of the anti-imperialist national liberation
movement.
There never was and there is not now a ready-made “doctrine” to
cling to, nor a leadership appointed by destiny to lead us on a straight
path and preserve us from error. What has to be relied on, now as
always, is the development of clear-headed scientific thinking about
policies, taking circumstances and changes of circumstances into
account. From this we have to build up the unity in action of
the left. On democratic counsel and organisation to build competent
revolutionary parties chiefly depends the destiny of mankind —
the overcoming of exploitation of man by man and, as Marx
put it, the duration and severity of “the birth pangs” of a new
world.
The point is that the capitalist mode of production, with capitalist
economic and political power, cannot but engender a struggle against
SCIENCE APPLIED TO POLITICS
I87
it by exploited classes; that this struggle has got to find leadership;
that Marxism embodies scientific principles of leadership; and
that therefore what has to be done is build Marxist parties and out
of hard and often bitter experience develop Marxism in theory and
practice.
3
THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM
I. HAS CAPITALISM DISAPPEARED?
Marxism applies in the practice of the working-class movement as a
practical policy for breaking the fetters capitalism puts on social
production and developing production to the full to meet human
needs. Dr. Popper, however, not only calls science prophecy and a
practical political policy utopia, but adds that there is no longer any
point in wanting to abolish capitalism because it has ceased to exist
anyway. His criticism thus devastates at all points. Marx is shown to
have been a singularly unfortunate prophet, because the evils whose
destruction he prophesied have long since been quietly removed by
means quite other than fire and brimstone.
“We must be on our guard”, Dr. Popper writes, “against . . . the
Marxist prejudice that socialism or communism is the only alternative
and the only possible successor to capitalism. Neither Marx nor anyone
else has ever shown that socialism ... is the only possible alternative
to the ruthless exploitation of that economic system which he first
described a century ago and to which he gave the name ‘capitalism*.
And indeed, if anybody were attempting to prove that socialism is the
only possible successor to Marx’s unrestrained capitalism, then we
could simply refute him by pointing to historical facts. For laissez
faire has disappeared from the face of the earth, but it has not been
replaced by a socialist or communist system as Marx understood it”
(2-OS. 140). The “unrestrained capitalism” which Marx denounced
has, says Dr. Popper, “given way ... to our own period of political
interventionism, of the economic interference of the state”. For “all
over the earth, organised political power has begun to perform far-
reaching economic functions”.
Marxists have for long maintained that in the normal course of
economic development capitalism passes from an earlier condition of
free competition to a stage of monopoly or state-monopoly capitalism,
which was entered into by the older capitalist economies from the
beginning of this century. This account of normal capitalist economic
development is founded on Marx’s own account of the processes of
centralisation and concentration of capital, and of the development
THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM
I89
of the finance and credit system, under conditions of free competition,
as a result of which free competition gives rise to monopoly. A
marked feature of monopoly capitalism, according to Marxist views,
is “the economic interference of the state”, which Dr. Popper
nevertheless tells us is now supplanting what Marx earlier described
and denounced as capitalism.
Dr. Popper evidently thinks that all Marx achieved in Capital was
to describe, fairly faithfully, the “unrestrained capitalism” of a century
ago. Marx did indeed describe it. He described how men and women
worked a twelve- or fourteen-hour day under unhealthy conditions in
factories, while the owners engaged one another in cut-throat com-
petition. Today die scene has changed. In many industries there is a
forty-hour week (with plenty of bonus earnings and overtime at
time-and-a-half or double time), health and safety regulations are
enforced and, far from there being lots of competing individual
masters, industries are dominated by a few great corporations. No
longer do capitalists sit jingling their moneybags in dingy counting
houses, where portraits of Grandfather Nathaniel and Great-uncle
Ebenezer look down with grim approval upon the squalid scene, but
members of a managerial elite play the power-game in spacious
apartments decorated with works of abstract art. Hence, says, Dr.
Popper, what Marx described no longer exists, and his entire analysis
is of no more than historical interest. Marx takes his place with
Charles Dickens as one of the great Victorians who, in their time,
goaded the public conscience by exposing social evils, but now gladden
the philistines with the sense of satisfaction that things are not like
that with us.
But what Marx achieved in Capital was not simply a description of
industrial conditions which soon became out of date as conditions
changed. Marx laid bare the social relations which develop under
capitalism, the capitalist relations of production , the mode of exploiting
wage-labour on which the whole economic structure depends. He
extracted these relations from the total mass of social activities in the
midst of which individuals are related by them — extracted them not,
as he put it, by means of chemical reagents or by fixing them under a
microscope, but by “force of abstraction” — and showed what they
are and what they lead to.
Marx made a most careful analysis of the production relations which
develop when goods are produced as commodities. As Lenin pointed
out in What the Friends of the People Are , “this analysis is strictly
190
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
confined to the relations of production between the members of
society. Without ever resorting to factors other than relations of
production to explain the matter, Marx makes it possible to discern
how the commodity organisation of society develops, how it becomes
transformed into capitalist economy . . and, we may add, how the
capitalist relations of production persist when laissez faire gives place
to ‘ ‘inter ventionism”. “While explaining the structure and develop-
ment of society exclusively in terms of relations of production,”
Lenin continued, Marx “went on to trace the superstructure corres-
ponding to these relations of production . . . Capital exhibited the
whole capitalist social formation to the reader as a live thing.”
True, it has not so exhibited it to Dr. Popper, because Dr. Popper
prefers his own interpretation of what Marx was about. But Marx’s
analysis of capitalist production relations shows how the economic
and political conditions of a century ago developed, and it also shows
how they have changed into the economic and political conditions of
contemporary capitalism. It shows that it is still capitalism. That in
the capitalist economies laissez faire has been largely replaced by
“interventionism”, while “a socialist or communist system as Marx
understood it” has not yet everywhere succeeded capitalism, is a
very well-known fact. And something of the sort was predicted by
Marx himself in Capital — a prediction Dr. Popper has chosen to
overlook. In his mature years Marx recognised quite clearly that his
youthful hopes that “the ruthless exploitation of that economic system
which he first described” would be quickly overthrown were founded
on an underestimation of the staying powers of the exploiters — though
even so he might admittedly have been distressed to learn that they
would keep going for as long as they have done. The “interventionism”
of which Dr. Popper writes — economic interference by a state in
which the big capitalists retain pretty firm control — is one of the
principal means by which they have kept going, for they could
hardly have succeeded without it.
But that in the development of capitalism laissez faire is replaced
by “economic interference of the state” does not imply either that
capitalism has disappeared or that socialism is not “the only possible
successor” to capitalism. On the contrary, as many Marxists, from
Marx onwards, have observed, the fact that the increasing socialisation
of the forces of production drives capitalists themselves to accept
forms of public control only shows how necessary it is to convert the
means of production into social property, and will, in the end, facilitate
THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM
191
that process. Thus Marx wrote in Capital (Vol. 3, Chapter 27) that
capital becomes “directly endowed with the form of social capital as
distinct from private capital, and its undertakings assume the form of
social undertakings as distinct from private undertakings. It is the
abolition of capital as private property within the framework of
capitalist production itself”. In this, he said, the functions of manage-
ment become separated from ownership, and this in turn “is a necessary
transitional phase” towards the conversion of capital “into the property
of associated producers, as outright social property”.
What does this change amount to? It was predicted and described
with rather remarkable accuracy by Engels in Anti-Duhring (Part 3,
Chapter 2).
The “pressure of the productive forces, in their mighty upgrowth,
against their character as capital,” he wrote, “. . . forces the capitalist
class itself more and more to treat them as social productive forces, in
so far as this is at all possible within the framew r ork of capitalist
relations”. It brings about “that form of the socialisation of huge
masses of means of production which we find in the various kinds of
joint-stock companies ... At a certain stage of development even
this form no longer suffices; the official representative of capitalist
society, the state, is constrained to take over their management.” And
increasingly, “the social functions of the capitalists are carried on by
salaried employees”.
But as Engels went on to say, this disappearance of laissez fair e
does not mean the disappearance of capitalism. “Conversion into
either joint-stock companies or state property does not deprive the
productive forces of their character as capital. In the case of joint-
stock companies this is obvious. And the modern state, too, is only
the organisation with which bourgeois society provides itself in order
to maintain the general external conditions of the capitalist mode of
production against encroachments either by the workers or by
individual capitalists. The modern state, whatever its form, is essentially
a capitalist machine . . . The more productive forces it takes over, the
more it becomes the real collective body of all the capitalists, the
more citizens it exploits. The workers remain wage workers . . . the
capitalist relation is not abolished.”
The point is that the capitalist mode of production is one in which
investments of privately-owned capital in enterprises employing wage-
labour yield a profit to the capitalists, from which ever greater
accumulations of privately-owned capital accrue. In order to preserve
192
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
the conditions in which the capitalist mode of production can continue
to function, it is necessary that not only wage-workers but capitalists
too should be subjected to various kinds of direction and constraint.
It is this which is provided by “the econo mic interference of the
state”. But the fact that “organised pohtical power has begun to
perform far-reacliing economic functions” does not mean that
capitalism has disappeared but that, on the contrary, it is being preserved.
And it is preserved for so long as the “interventionist” state remains
“essentially a capitalist macliine”.
It is clear, then, that Dr. Popper’s contention that the advent of
“pohtical interventionism” refutes “the Marxist prejudice that socialism
or communism is the only alternative and the only possible successor
to capitalism” is simply another case of his refuting Marxism by
making it mean sometliing other than what it says. Marx and Engels
never said that “the only alternative” to laissez faire or “unrestrained
capitalism” was “socialism or communism”. They said very clearly
indeed that it would have to be replaced as capitalism developed by
“pohtical interventionism” or “the economic interference of the
state”. This is exactly what has happened, so what has happened has
confirmed and not refuted Marx’s predictions about the development
of capitalism.
2. THE LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE
Marx’s account of capitalist production relations exhibits the relation
which people enter into with one another when they produce and
exchange commodities , and when, in a commodity-producing society,
some, as wage-earners, are forced to sell their own labour-power as a
commodity. This relation is defined in terms of the so-called “labour
theory of value”, which is thus fundamental in Marx’s analysis of the
nature and development of capitalist production relations.
Dr. Popper, having failed to grasp that in Capital Marx began with
an abstract inquiry “strictly confined to the relations of production
between the members of society”, and having thus missed the whole
point of the inquiry, fails to see the point of the labour theory of
value. “Marx’s theory of value, usually considered by Marxists as
well as by anti-Marxists as a cornerstone of the Marxist creed, is in
my opinion one of its rather unimportant points,” he writes (2-OS. 170).
As usual, he presents Marxist theory in terms which make its alleged
meaning puerile; so no wonder he thinks it “rather unimportant”.
THE CRITIQUE OP CAPITALISM
193
On this question, however, the other “anti-Marxists” are right: the
labour theory of value is indeed “a cornerstone” in Marx's theoretical
model of capitalist production relations (called by Dr. Popper “the
Marxist creed”).
According to Dr. Popper, the labour theory of value was “intro-
duced in order to explain the actual prices at which all commodities
are exchanged”. Thus “you have to pay for the job, or for any
commodity you may buy, roughly in proportion to the amount of
work in it, i.e. to the number of labour hours necessary for its
production”. Of course, “actual prices fluctuate. But there is, or so
at least it appears, always something more stable behind these prices,
a kind of average price about which the actual prices oscillate, christened
the ‘exchange value' or briefly, the ‘value' of the thing. Using this
general idea, Marx defined the value of a commodity as the average
number of labour hours necessary for its production” (2-OS. 171).
Thus Marx is represented as a sort of careful shopper, who wants
to know why this should cost more than that, and to find some
standard by which a fair price can always be determined. He is
represented as simple-minded almost to the point of imbecility. For
of course, as Dr. Popper goes on to say, to understand why prices
fluctuate you need “a more concrete theory; a theory which shows,
in any particular case, how the laws of supply and demand bring
about the effect which has to be explained” (2-OS. 175).
He therefore concludes: “But if these laws are sufficient to explain
these effects, then we do not need the labour theory of value at all.”
The whole labour theory of value is therefore “unimportant” and
‘'‘redundant”. It is for this very reason, indeed, that all those sophis-
ticated students of economic laws (whom Marx rather rudely called
“vulgar”) who are interested in formulating equations expressing how
this economic variable is a function of that, find that they have no
use whatever for the labour theory of value and have consequently
expelled it from their economic science as a sheer irrelevancy.
Marx's primary interest, however, was not in the fluctuations of
prices but in the formation, development and change of relations of
production. He saw capitalism as an historically constituted system of
relations of production brought into being in adaptation to a definite
development of productive forces and then becoming an obstacle to
their further development for the satisfaction of human needs. It was
to define these relations of production and explain their formation and
effects that he employed the labour theory of value.
194
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
As regards “actual prices” and their fluctuations, Dr. Popper is
right in saying “that Marx realised” that a “concrete theory” must
needs include an explanation of “how the laws of supply and demand
bring about the effect which has to be explained”. That does not
imply that “the laws of supply and demand” constitute a complete
explanation of the whole process of exchange of commodities, nor
does it make the labour theory of value unimportant or redundant.
The theory explains the formation and development of relations of
production, and so is relevant to questions which Dr. Popper and the
economists he thinks have superseded Marx do not even ask. They
can explain to their own satisfaction the fluctuations of costs and
prices (even though they cannot find how to control them). What
they cannot explain, and ask no questions about, is the formation and
character of the relations of production which give rise to the pheno-
mena they seek to explain. They simply ignore, and bury out of sight,
the character of the wages system and of the exploitation of labour
in which capitalism consists.
Marx began his investigation of capitalist production relations by
observing that in capitalist production “wealth . . . presents itself as
an immense accumulation of commodities” ( Critique of Political
Economy , Chapter i; Capital , Vol. i, Chapter i). Thus he started by
defining capitalism as a mode of commodity production. He then
inquired into what commodity production is in general, so a$ to
demonstrate how it develops into that specific mode of production
which constitutes capitalism. He thus arrived at the definition of the
specific character of capitalist production relations.
In commodity production, individual producers or groups of
producers do not simply produce things for their own use, but for
exchange against other products for which they have a use. Com-
modities are products of labour which, firstly, have a use (people
want them for one purpose or another), and secondly are exchangeable
for other products. Hence they have both use-value and exchange-
value. And the labour which produces them has a dual character, as
producing objects for use, but not immediately for use but for
exchange.
When people exchange commodities, what are they doing? What
is the social relation they enter into with one another? This is the
question to ask, in order to arrive at the definition of production
relations. And, as usual with fundamental questions, the answer is
pretty obvious. They are exchanging products of definite quantities of
THE CRITIQUE OP CAPITALISM
195
labour. In conditions where people share certain forces of production,
a norm naturally gets established of how many man-hours of labour
are socially necessary to produce each commodity. Therefore in
commodity production people enter into a relation with one another in which
they exchange and acquire from one another products each of which embodies
a definite quantity of socially necessary labour. The labour theory of
value consists simply in stating this fact — abstracting and stating this
fundamental production relation which remains constant amid all the
variable relations into which people enter with one another and with
external nature in commodity production.
Besides its use-value, every commodity has an exchange-value
independent of its particular use. Similarly, all labour, irrespective of
its use — regardless of its materials and its instruments, and of the use
to which people put its products, and the desirability of their use — has
the common feature of producing goods and services for exchange.
All the performances of social labour are alike in using up varying
quantities of socially necessary labour for the production of goods and
services for exchange, and all the products are alike in embodying
varying quantities of labour socially necessary for their production.
In other words, what all products have in common is that they embody
a quantity of socially necessary labour. They can all be compared , therefore ,
in respect of how much socially necessary labour has gone into them. This
common feature of commodities, quantitatively determined and
measured in terms of units of labour-time, is used in the labour theory
of value to define “value”.
The labour theory of value is therefore stated in the form of a
definition , the definition of “value”. But this definition is no mere
“verbal” definition. It is no more merely verbal or conventional than
are the definitions of basic concepts employed in any other sciences —
for example, in mechanics. It serves to abstract and define the common
feature of all commodities y in respect of which they can all be compared.
There can, obviously, be no doubt whatever that commodities do
have value, in the sense defined. If some economists prefer to use the
word “value” in other ways, that does not affect the fundamental
truth about production relations expressed in the labour theory of
value. It only means that these economists prefer to overlook this
fundamental truth.
Clearly, as so defined, the “value” of a commodity is not a property
of an object (like its weight, for example) which it possesses in-
dependently of whatever people do, but appertains to commodities
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
196
because people produce them by their labour and depends on how
much labour they expend. And the value relation between commodities
(i.e. that two or more commodities are of equal or unequal value)
holds between them because of the social production relations of men , i.e.
because men work to produce commodities and because in their
work they have to devote varying amounts of socially necessary
labour-time to producing various objects of use.
In supposing that the labour theory of value was “introduced in
order to explain the actual prices at which commodities are exchanged”
Dr. Popper absurdly misunderstands the problem the definition of
“value” was used to solve. The problem is not simply one of explaining
the actual prices of commodities but of explaining the social relations
in commodity-producing societies. This explanation is achieved in the
labour theory of value. Things people need or want are produced by
labour ; thanks to division of labour people have to exchange products
of labour; hence products are produced as commodities; and in
buying and selling them people are exchanging the embodiments of
definite quantities of socially necessary labour-time.
Having defined the value relation of commodities in terms of the
labour socially necessary for their production, or in other words,
in terms of the social relations in commodity-producing society,
Marx was then able to show quite cogently how value enters into the
determination of price. In pricing commodities people are not just
affixing price-tags but arranging the exchange of the products of
labour. The quantity of labour that has gone into the production of
each commodity is, when people are exchanging products of labour,
a constant determining factor present in every act of exchange. Other
things being equal, the products of a given quantity of labour would
be exchanged for products of an equal quantity of labour. But in
actual practice, commodities do not generally exchange at their value,
but such factors as “supply and demand” affect the actual prices at
which they exchange. Marx accordingly dealt with “actual prices” in
Capital by the method of assuming, first of all, that goods do exchange
at their value, and then, by examining in detail the actual concrete
conditions of production and exchange, demonstrating the factors
which make them exchange otherwise than at their values and the
economic consequences which ensue.
Dr. Popper says that “the whole idea that there is something
behind the prices, an objective or real or true value of which prices are
only ‘a form of appearance’, shows clearly enough the influence of
THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM
197
Platonic Idealism” (2-OS. 177). It shows nothing of the sort; it shows
simply that attention is paid to basic and empirically verifiable social
relations of production. And having paid attention to these relations
of production — having abstracted them, defined them and verified
them — Marx was then able to show how actual prices are determined
in commodity-producing societies. Far from being a “redundant”
concept or an example of “the influence of Platonic Idealism”, the
concept of “value”, as defined by Marx, first of all refers to empirically
verifiable relations which men enter into in producing commodities,
and is then used to state laws about the way men exchange com-
modities, and about the variations of the prices at which commodities
are exchanged, which are likewise empirically verifiable.
Besides this, the labour theory of value throws a good deal of light
on social relations in commodity-producing societies, which remain
hidden and unremarked on so long as the exchange of commodities
is regarded as no more than a matter of some people bringing goods
to market and others buying them there at the market price. In any
society people engage in social production, and the total social product
is divided up, in the process of distribution, between the members of
society. Each gets his share of the total product of social labour in a
way depending on the production relations. The labour theory of
value poses the question of how this division is effected in commodity-
producing societies, through the process of production and exchange.
It poses the question of how the values produced by labour are
appropriated, how much goes to the labourers, how much goes to
others, and how those others get it. So the labour theory of value
has the merit of directing attention beyond questions of “explaining
actual prices” to questions about social labour and the appropriation
of its products which are ignored by those who simply want to study
price fluctuations.
All this means developing political economy as a social science,
that is, as an investigation of social relations . For Marxism, political
economy is the investigation of the relations into which people enter
in the production and distribution of their means of life.
In the section of Capital headed “the fetishism of commodities”
Marx criticised the approach to economic science which treated it as
an investigation of the properties and relations of the products of
economic activity — as though commodities possessed properties of
exchanging with one another, and so of selling at various prices,
independently of the social relations of the people who produce,
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
198
exchange and consume such products. Like that, people’s activity is
ruled by the economic relations between the things they produce and
exchange, whereas in fact such relations between things are not
inherent in things but are determined by the social relations of the
people who produce and exchange them. Marx called this approach
“fetishism” because of its resemblance to the attitude of savages who
suppose that their lives are ruled by properties inherent in the fetishes
they worship.
By criticising the fetishism of commodities in terms of the labour
theory of value Marx was able to direct attention to the production
relations in commodity-producing societies. He was able to show
under what conditions these develop into capitalist production
relations, and then that capitalist production relations are relations of
the exploitation of wage-labour by capital. Having shown that, he
was able to show how this form of exploitation can and must be
done away with.
3. SURPLUS VALUE AND EXPLOITATION OF
WAGE-LABOUR
In terms of the labour theory of value Marx could define the specific
new features of the production relations which distinguish capitalism
from earlier modes of commodity production.
In production, the labourer applies instruments of production to
the materials of labour in order to fashion the product. In commodity
production, this product is appropriated by whoever owns the materials
and instruments, that is, the means of production. He is the owner,
and it is he who is entitled to make a sale. In the simplest sort of
commodity production, goods are sold by the people who make
them. That is not so in capitalism. Capitalism arises only when the
labourer has been deprived of ownership of means of production
(Marx investigated in great detail how this happens historically).
What distinguishes capitalism is wage-labour. The means of production
are owned by the capitalist; the labourer has to work for wages with
means of production which belong to someone else; and the product,
together with the proceeds of its sale, is appropriated by the capitalist.
It is the capitalist who sells it, and he hopes to make a profit on the
sale.
The progressive feature of capitalism is that in these conditions
great numbers of workers are brought together to work under the
THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM
199
direction of a single capitalist management, so that the individual
labour of individual commodity-producers is replaced by socialised
labour — a far more effective force of production. But in contradiction
to the new socialised character of production there remains from the
older forms of commodity production the private appropriation of
the product by the owner of the means of production.
Marx then demonstrated that in capitalism the worker who, not
owning means of production, has no products of his labour to exchange
for what else he needs to keep alive, has one thing of his own which
he can sell — and that is his labour^power. The workers have to sell
their labour-power to the capitalists. The capitalists, who own means
of production, buy from the workers the use of their labour-power
for a stipulated number of hours. The workers get wages, with which
they can buy things they need ; and the capitalists get the products of
their work, which they can sell at a profit.
Where does the profit come from? Marx answered this question
by the very simple demonstration that the total values the workers
receive as wages are always less (much less) than the values they
produce by their work and which are appropriated by the capitalists.
Evidently, the value of the labour-power sold by the workers is
equivalent to the quantity of labour necessary to produce all that the
workers must consume in order to supply that labour-power. But
the total quantity of work performed by the workers is considerably
greater than the value of their own labour-power used up in producing
it. This difference Marx called “surplus value”. The capitalists get
their profits and accumulate capital out of the surplus value they
obtain by employing workers for wages.
Each capitalist does not, however, appropriate to himself the whole
surplus value accruing from the employment of the labour he himself
has hired. The capitalist has to borrow money from others, on which
he must pay interest; he has to buy or hire things from others, and
sell things to others — and the upshot of all these sorts of transactions
is that the owners of capital are so linked together that what happens
is not that each takes surplus value only from the workers in his own
employ, and leaves die rest to other employers, but rather that the
capitalist class as a whole appropriates surplus value from the labour
force as a whole, and divides it up amongst the different capitalist
claimants.
Marx devoted many chapters of Capital to demonstrating the
various ways in which the total of surplus value extracted from the
200
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
I
workers is divided up to be appropriated in the various forms of rent,
interest and profit. If one considers contemporary capitalism, with
its elaborate machinery of finance and credit, its shareholdings, its
great corporations staffed by professional managements, and its
“changing balance of public and private power”, Marx’s basic analysis
continues to apply to it. For what is going on is still that wage-labour
produces surplus value, out of which a wide variety of claims are
met. Some of it is appropriated by public bodies for public purposes
(by publicly-owned services and via taxation). It is a feature of con-
temporary capitalism that a great deal of this public appropriation
goes to pay bondholders and property speculators, and to subsidise
privately-owned concerns. The rest continues to be privately appro-
priated by the shrinking number of individuals who effectively
remain the capitalist owners and masters of the means of social
production. Some of it gets used for directors’ fees and managerial
salaries, some is paid out as interest, dividends, and so forth — and some
is reinvested in production.
Capital accumulation is always made out of surplus value. The
economic growth of the system depends on the continuous profitable
investment and accumulation of capital. If capital is not growing and
accumulating in this way, it is shrinking and values are being destroyed:
it must expand or bust. The condition, therefore, for the conduct of
production under capitalism is that the maximum of surplus value
should be extracted out of the employment of wage-labour. “The
aim of capitalist production”, wrote Marx ( Capital , Vol. i, Chapter 13),
“is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus value, and
consequently to exploit labour-power to the greatest possible extent.”
What characterises the system is that in every productive process
so much value in labour-power is used up, in fashioning so much
value in material with the aid of so much value in wear and tear of
machinery and other instruments of production; so much value in
products is consequently produced; and so much surplus value is
consequently extracted.
However, from the point of view of management (whether manage-
ment of particular enterprises, or the sort of overall management
which governments are now supposed to perform), the profitability
of enterprise and the solvency of the economy as a whole depends on
whether the sale of products does or does not cover costs, measured
in money. In costs are included wages and salaries, materials, machinery,
depreciation, costs of management, rent, interest on borrowed capital
THE CRITIQUE OP CAPITALISM
201
— and also public works and social services. Management reckons and
calculates, not in terms of quantities of socially necessary labour, but
in terms of prices and costs — reckoning with indices of productivity,
with borrowings and repayments, with finding sales outlets, with the
division of income between personal expenditures and reinvestment,
and so on. These are, naturally, the “concrete” things that concern it,
and not such “abstract” matters as values, surplus value and the rate of
surplus value. In general (as Marx showed), the wages-bill of a
particular enterprise does not correspond to the value of the labour-
power it buys, the sales income does not correspond to the value of
the goods sold, and the profit does not correspond to the sum-total
of surplus value extracted. Even if someone worked out the values,
it would not assist the management in its practical calculations about
costs and profits. Management, therefore, finds no employment for
Marx’s conception of value. This conception was not, indeed, worked
out with a view to assisting capitalist management, and therefore
appears to it unimportant, redundant, irrelevant, and even a relic
of Platonic Idealism.
The majority of professional economists, who simply study indices
of production, costs, prices, wages, investments, savings, national
income, and so on, with a view to formulating equations which will
cover their variations, can likewise find no employment for the
labour theory of value. But evidently in this they are simply accom-
modating themselves to the point of view and interest of capitalist
management, to which they are trying to sell professional advice.
And while many of the equations may be accurate, and the advice
practical and businesslike, nevertheless, considered as social science, the
whole undertaking is strangely defective. For production costs, wages,
prices, and all the rest, are only the results of people having entered
into definite relations of production, in which all labour is productive
of exchange-values, and labour-power itself and all its products are
exchange-values and so have their variable production costs, prices,
and so on.
When the economist has formulated his equations, he may claim
to have explained that when this cost varies in one way that price
varies in another way, and to advise the manager and legislator that
if he can peg this variable he will be able thereby to keep another under
control. However, he has neither defined nor explained the production
relations into which people have entered. But it is only as a result of
those production relations that the phenomena he studies occur at all.
202
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
Many economists object to talking about values defined in terms of
socially necessary labour, and to talking about surplus value, on the
grounds that it is a mere abstraction. It is an abstraction, but not an
unimportant, redundant or irrelevant one. Abstraction is necessary,
but the important thing is to assemble the information gained from
different modes of abstraction so as to reveal the real connections,
portray what is actually going on, and comprehend its law of motion.
That is dialectics — and it was as a dialectician that Marx had the
advantage as a social scientist.
As Lenin said, Marx abstracted for investigation “the relations of
production between the members of society”, and having done so
was able to show what happens in the development of the process of
production and exchange. Capitalist managers and their economists,
on the other hand, also abstract — they abstract operations of producing
and consuming, buying and selling, managing and being managed,
from the relations of production by entering into which people come
to do these things. They pride themselves on dealing with nothing
but observable and measurable variables; but it is their portrayal of
the economic movement of society as nothing but the process of
these variables which is in truth a mere abstraction. What is actually
going on is that people are producing, exchanging and consuming
the products of social labour. To see only movements of costs, prices,
productivity, national incomes, and so forth, is to represent the
economic process simply in terms of a set of abstractions and then to
say: these are the economic process.
Marx’s analysis in terms of the labour theory of value portrays
capitalism for what it is, a particular historically-constituted mode of
production, and distinguishes it from pre-capitalist economic forma-
tions. It shows capitalism as a mode of production based on the
exploitation of wage-labour, and clearly distinguishes this form of
exploitation of labour from earlier forms. Thus it clearly defines
capitalism in terms of basic social relations — a definition deplored as
abstract and redundant by hard-headed managerial types, who do
not like employees to be shown exactly how they are used for making
profits for employers.
Whereas Marx demonstrated that capitalist production exploits
wage-labour, many economists and sociologists today, who regard
production relations as mere abstractions, deny that wage-labour is
exploited. Nowadays they do sometimes agree that it used to be
exploited; but they deny that it is exploited any longer, for they
THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM
203
simply pay no attention to the capitalist production relations. Thus,
as Dr. Popper has assured us, the exploitation of labour was an evil
of the old laissez faire system which modem “interventionism” has
almost got rid of.
According to this conception, the well-managed firm, which today
enters into collective agreements with trade union officials, does not
exploit its workers. A collective agreement is not exploitation; there
is exploitation only if people are bullied and coerced. It is only the
bad and selfish employer, who sacks shop stewards and undercuts the
rate, who exploits labour — and he should be firmly dealt with by
the interventionist authorities, though first it is necessary to deal with
bad and selfish workers who persist in coming out on strike.
Exploitation, according to Dr. Popper’s definition, consists of “long
hours of work and low real wages” (2-OS. 169). And have not hours
of work been reduced, and real wages raised? And would not real
wages be raised still further if only workers would get rid of the idea
that they must resist exploitation and instead devote themselves to
increasing productivity by resisting restrictive practices? The fact is,
however, that the modern well-managed firm probably extracts a
higher rate of surplus value than does its less efficient rate-cutting
competitor. As Marx quite conclusively showed, an increased rate of
surplus value can be got by intensifying labour and rationalising
production, at the same time as hours of labour are reduced and real
wages raised.
Capitalist exploitation consists in the extraction of surplus-value,
and this still goes on. It has not decreased but increased, for behind
the facade of collective bargaining and modernisation it is conducted
more efficiently and ruthlessly than ever. The capitalist, as Marx
showed, always has a hard job to maintain his rate of profit, and to
do so he has to scheme out how to intensify the exploitation of labour
by rationalisation of every kind — which he duly does.
In demonstrating that capitalism is a system of exploitation of
labour, Marx showed exactly how it is related to and differs from
older forms of exploitation.
The essence (if I may be allowed the use of this word in its normally
accepted sense, without being accused of “methodological essentialism”)
of exploitation consists in this: that members of an owning and managing
class contrive to appropriate to their own uses the products of the labour of
productive workers , so that those workers are in effect working only in part
for their own support and in the main for the support of the exploiters ,
204
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
It means that a minority of exploiters appropriate to their own uses the
labour of the working majority.
The typical ancient forms of exploitation were, roughly speaking,
slavery and serfdom. In slavery the slave is a mere chattel: he is the
property of the master, who owns both him and all he produces. In
serfdom the producers work a certain amount of time for themselves,
but for the rest have to work to provide the requirements of their
lords. The advent of capitalism depended on doing away with both
slavery and serfdom, for only on that condition could the supply of
free labour be available for employment in the factories. But the
exploitation of labour remains, and has simply taken another (and
more efficient) form. For so much of the working day the wage-workers
are doing that amount of work which has to be done to produce the value of
their own requirements of life ; for the rest of the day they are producing
surplus value for their employers.
3. THE GENERAL LAW OF CAPITALIST ACCUMULATION
In supposing that what he calls “interventionism” has actually
supplanted capitalism, in the way Marx said that only socialism would
supplant capitalism, Dr. Popper alleges that “economic interference
of the state” has already brought those benefits which Marx said only
socialism would bring. He goes so far as to say that “by social
co-operation” monopoly capitalism has already gone a long way to
abolish “the greatest evils which have hitherto beset the social life
of man”, namely, “Poverty, Unemployment and similar forms of
social insecurity, Sickness and pain, Penal Cruelty, Slavery and other
forms of Serfdom, Religious and Racial Discrimination, Lack qf
Educational Opportunities, Rigid Class Differences, War” (CR. 370).
If that were true, one could not but agree with Dr. Popper that there
would be no sense in following Marx — for if the status quo is satisfactory,
why change it?
According to Dr. Popper, Marx based his entire “prophecy” that
capitalism would inevitably be overthrown on the notion that under
capitalism people’s conditions of life would inevitably deteriorate until
finally they became insupportable. According to this version, Marx
predicted a century ago that the workers’ standards in the industrial
capitalist countries would not improve but grow steadily worse. But
in fact, as we know, they have improved. Hence Marx’s ideas about
capitalism and its development have been proved to be entirely
THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM
205
mistaken. And his idea that capitalism must be abolished and replaced
by socialism, founded on these mistaken premises, is equally mistaken.
Whereas Marx said that things would get worse and worse, they have,
on the contrary, got better and better. Marxist theory, prophesying
‘‘absolute impoverishment”, bears no relation to what has actually
happened — and political policies based on it are therefore doomed to
frustration. These circumstances, says Dr. Popper, force Marxists to
“learn to believe blindly” and to become “hostile to reasonable
arguments”. And with withering sarcasm he concludes that “it is not
only capitalism which is labouring under inner contradictions that
threaten to bring its downfall” (2-OS. 192).
Like his refutation of the labour theory of value, this further
refutation of Marxism so confidently presented by Dr. Popper is a
hardy annual in the by now rather old-fashioned garden of refutations.
What keeps it fresh and green is a single quotation from Capital
(Vol. I, Chapter 25, section 4): “To the degree to which capital
accumulates, the workers* condition must deteriorate.” This statement
was called by Marx “the absolute general law of capitalist accumula-
tion” — so this impressive title certainly justifies attaching to it some
considerable importance in the body of Marxist theory. However,
unless one proposes to be “hostile to reasonable argument”, it is best
to understand and interpret particular statements within the context
of the whole theory to which they belong, rather than understand
and interpret the whole theory as though it were summed up in one
statement.
Immediately after stating in general terms “the absolute general
law” Marx added the qualifying statement: “Like all other laws it is
modified in its working by many circumstances.” If words have
meaning, these ones imply that, contrary to the interpretation put
upon it by Dr. Popper and others, the “absolute general law” does
not unconditionally predict that every accumulation of capital will be
accompanied by a deterioration of the workers* conditions. On the
contrary, “many circumstances** will prevent such a deterioration.
Whatever may be the case with others who have tried to refute
Marx, it is rather extraordinary that an expert on scientific method
like Dr. Popper should succumb to such a simple fallacy as to suppose
that the scientific formulation of “a law*’ is the same tiling as an
unconditional prediction. Statements of laws are not predictions, but
tools used in making predictions.
For instance, no one with any knowledge of science supposes that
20 6
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
the law of gravitation is a prediction that all bodies will always fall
to the earth. Some bodies rise and fly about in the air, and the use
of the law of gravitation is to assist us in calculating the conditions
under which they do so. Marx understood this perfectly well when he
wrote about “the general law of capitalist accumulation” — and so does
Dr. Popper understand it in any context save that of the refutation
of Marxism.
The point of “the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation”
is not that it enables us to predict that under no circumstances so long
as capitalism lasts will workers ever improve their conditions, which
will always deteriorate. And nowhere in Capital did Marx make any
such prediction. The point of the law is to state the “absolute general”
condition, existing so long as capital accumulates, under which
workers’ standards either deteriorate or improve— just as gravitation
is the “absolute general” condition under which bodies fall or rise.
If you think a body can fly up and up not subject to the condition
of gravity, you are mistaken. And if you think workers’ standards can
go up and up not subject to the condition of the absolute general
law of capitalist accumulation, you are mistaken too. Just as a body
exerts a gravitational attraction proportional to its mass, so does every
accumulation of capital, accumulated by extracting as much surplus
value as possible from the workers’ labour, create a greater power and
urge to suck up out of labour an even greater accumulation— by
rationalising production, throwing redundant workers on the scrap-
heap, and encroaching in every possible way on the standards of
labour. That is the condition under which any battle to raise standards
has always to be fought.
When we consider, in the light of Marx’s complete analysis of
capitalist production, the totality of actual circumstances created by
the accumulation of capital in the advanced capitalist countries, we
find that these circumstances are such that it would be surprising if
an improvement in the workers’ condition had not taken place; and
that for several reasons.
In the first place, as Marx said very often and very clearly, the
actual level of workers’ standards is determined, not by an “iron law
of wages” which decrees that they shall always be reduced to the bare
minimum for subsistence, but by the conditions of class struggle. The
growing strength of labour organisation succeeds in forcing stan-
dards up.
In the second place, the very great advances in technology which
THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM
207
accompany the accumulation of capital have the result that all kinds of
amenities become available on a mass scale, and consequently the
consumption of these becomes a part of the material requirements
and expectations of the worker. In other words, with an advanced
technology the worker comes to require for his maintenance various
goods and services his forefathers did without — and which his brothers
in more backward regions still do without. In terms of the labour
theory of value, the provision of these goods and services then enters
into the determination of the value of labour-power in the advanced
countries. This too was very clearly stated by Marx, who pointed
out that in more developed regions the value of labour-power is con-
siderably higher than in less developed ones — and he assigned this as a
powerful motive for export of capital to regions of cheap labour, where
the actual value of labour was much less than it had become at home.
In the third place, what Dr. Popper calls the performance of
economic functions by organised political power, which Marx and
Engels so clearly forecast, enables capitalist governments to mitigate
to some extent the ravages of cyclical economic crises and sudden
mass increases of unemployment. The effect is to lessen to some extent
the consequent pressures against the improvement of workers’ stan-
dards which these formerly exerted. Of course it is very advantageous
for the capitalists to have managed to provide themselves with what
they now call “economic levers” to control economic conditions in
the interests of the profitable operations of capital. But at the same
time it sets them a new problem. Accompanying the “far-reaching
economic functions” which political power performs they have to
include appropriate political measures to counteract labour’s demand
for rising standards.
These are circumstances which have made it possible in some
favoured regions to work for and achieve the limited success in
remedying social evils under capitalism which Dr. Popper celebrates.
When we look at his list, quoted above, we cannot doubt that much
benefit has been gained by social security legislation, health services,
legal reform, the educational services, and opposition to religious and
racial discrimination; while as for “slavery and serfdom”, capitalism
has always discouraged these forms of exploitation and sought to
replace them by wage-labour.
It is hardly true, however, that the benefits listed have simply been
bestowed on grateful humanity by a benevolently interventionist
state. They have been won only by struggle in which the working-
208
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
class movement has played the chief part. And we may well ask by
how much more the various social evils could have been reduced had
it not been for the obstinate resistance of the ruling class at every
step to every measure proposed to raise the standards of common
people. In fact, just as the development of laissez faire to “interven-
tionism” has verified Marx’s economic predictions, so have the
benefits won in the process verified his prediction that under capitalism
the working people would never get any benefits without fighting for them .
Coming to the last two items on Dr. Popper’s list, one does perhaps
wonder on what data he has concluded that “in Scandinavia, the
United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, we have, in fact,
something approaching classless societies” (CR. 371). Is there really
no class distinction, in the countries mentioned, between people living
by working for wages and by investments and capital gains? And is
there none between the “organisation men” of the American corpora-
tions and the poverty-stricken masses in Latin America from whose
labour such considerable revenue flows into the United States?
As regards war, Dr. Popper explains that what he means is that
“the free world will only go to war ... if faced with unambiguous
aggression” (CR. 372). But whenever people in a territory under the
special protection of a heavily armed power of “the free world”
seek to dispense with that protection, this is called “aggression”. That
is why events since 1956 (which is when Dr. Popper delivered the
lecture from which his eulogy of modern capitalism has been quoted)
have continued to falsify his statement that “as far as the free world
itself is concerned, war has been conquered” (CR. 372).
For all Iris claim to oppose “reasonable argument” to “blind”
belief, Dr. Popper does not always trouble to inquire whether facts
support Iris own assertions. This is evidenced by the opening sentence
of The Open Society and its Enemies, in which he says that “our civilisa-
tion”, by which he presumably means the civilisation whose economic
basis is monopoly capitalism, “might be perhaps described as aiming
at humaneness and reasonableness, at equality and freedom”. It is
true he does say “perhaps”; and perhaps so long as such methods as
the spraying of defenceless women and children with napalm continue
to be adopted for realising the aims, this should be accepted as the
operative word.
Facts make it pretty clear that in the most advanced capitalist
countries, for all the benefits won by their inhabitants, every other
aim of policy is subordinated to the condition of preserving the
THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM
209
relations of capitalist exploitation and safeguarding capitalist profits.
But more than that, the facts make it even clearer that the political
power established in these countries not only intervenes inside the
countries themselves to preserve and foster capitalist exploitation. It
intervenes very vigorously indeed outside their borders, in other
territories, to conquer spheres of investment, markets and sources of
raw materials, and to make the labour of people in economically more
backward regions subject to imperialist exploitation. The aim of this
is neither humaneness, freedom nor equality; nor is the conduct of
the rivalry between imperialist powers, or the relations between them
and their dependencies, especially noteworthy for reasonableness.
Dr. Popper assigned as Marx’s reason for advocating a socialist
revolution the alleged unconditional prophecy (said to be implied by
“the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation”) that, until that
event, standards of life will from day to day and in every way go on
getting lower and lower. So “increase of misery” will “force” the
proletariat “to revolt against its exploiters” (2-OS. 137). The workers’
economic and social demands will always be refused, and consequently
they will become inspired “with a desperate knowledge that only
revolution can help them in their misery” (2-OS. 191).
If that were true, the result would be discouragement and disorgani-
sation rather than stronger organisation, and they would never make
a revolution. The workers in fact organise because experience teaches
them that that is the way to improve their condition — and they are
forced to keep up an economic and political struggle against capital
because only so can they hold on to their gains and gain more. That is
what Marx teaches the labour movement, and not the doctrinaire and
defeatist nonsense which Dr. Popper imagines. But Dr. Popper con-
cludes that if the working class can improve its condition under
capitalism there can be no reason for proposing to abolish capitalism.
For if you can improve your condition why not improve it some more,
instead of calling for the abolition of the system under which such
improvements can be made?
Dr. Popper is right about one tiling, and that is that for Marx “the
absolute general law of capitalist accumulation” provided grounds for
advising the abolition of capitalism and for predicting that it would
eventually be abolished. Marx certainly did maintain that all those
hopeful people (like Dr. Popper himself) who think that improvements
in living standards can go on and on under capitalism, so that every-
thing will get better and better and eventually all poverty, unemploy-
210
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
ment, class differences and war will simply disappear, are blind to the
operation of “the absolute general law”. But the law is not an uncon-
ditional prediction of increasing impoverishment. And in general, as
Dr. Popper has rightly said, unconditional predictions are foreign to
science. What the law actually says can be summed up in three points.
First, capitalist accumulation is realised out of surplus value. To
obtain more surplus and accumulate more capital out of it, it is neces-
sary to keep down the labourers’ share of the values produced by
labour. Hence the accumulation of capital, essential for the continua-
tion of the system, demands that in every way the pressure of the
wage-workers for a greater share of the values produced be opposed
and pushed back. Whatever makes for better living for the workers
is therefore always opposed by the steady pressure engendered by
capitalist accumulation to make living standards deteriorate.
Second, the drive for capitalist accumulation brings a continual
drive for rationalisation of production and the replacement of human
labour by machinery. Until it can be re-employed at a profit, capital
has no use for the labour displaced. The people concerned are thrown
temporarily or permanently on to the scrapheap. Hence, as Marx
stressed in the chapter of Capital devoted to the “general law”,
capitalist accumulation continually generates an “industrial reserve” of
unemployed, and this is a continual and very powerful factor acting
against the raising of living standards.
Third, because capitalist accumulation thrives on maximum exploita-
tion of labour, capital always seeks for spheres of investment where
greater profit can be got out of greater poverty. Hence such islands
of affluence as may be formed in particular places are surrounded by
a sea of poverty, out of the exploitation of which the affluence is
sustained. As Marx said, the more capital accumulates the greater, on
a world-wide scale, becomes the contrast between the wealth of a
few and the poverty of the many. As he said, the wealth accumulates
at one pole, the poverty at the other.
The “absolute general law” summed up in these three points con-
tinues to operate wherever capitalist accumulation goes on. We
continue to see it operating every day.
In the advanced capitalist countries experience to date contributes
little to suggest that the situation is a stable one which will permit the
steady uninterrupted improvement of conditions of employment and
standards of living. There is, as Marx and Engels predicted and Dr.
Popper has duly noted, a certain amount of planning and regulation
THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM
211
of the economy — but planning and regulation by whom and for
whom? The condition of the whole thing is the securing of profits
for the great capitalist corporations out of the employment of wage-
labour. It is not planning for welfare but planning for profit; and so
far as economic growth for the satisfaction of needs is concerned,
there remains always a chronic waste and under-employment of
resources both material and human. The anarchic character of the
profit motive continually asserts itself against any schemes of planned
growth, and at the same time the demands of labour that social
production should be turned to the well-being of the producers are
met by the owners’ objection that we cannot afford it. As is happening
in Britain at the time of writing (1966-7), the controllers know how
to put the brakes on, and how to set about creating unemployment
when “over-full employment” is giving the worker too much bargain-
ing power. In affluent America there has always been a huge mass of
permanent unemployment, and a vast and shameful accumulation of
poverty.
These facts verify among other things Marx’s theoretical conclusion
that the process of circulation of capital, which is what capitalist
management tries to manage, remains as a whole unmanageable.
The circulation of capital begins with an accumulation of capital
in the form of money, which is used to buy materials, machinery and
labour-power. Then labour-power is set to work, to produce both
means of consumption and the machinery to be used for new produc-
tion. Then the products are sold, so as to realise a new and greater
sum of money with which to buy more labour-power, materials and
machinery. This circular movement is the life process of capital. For
it to flow on uninterrupted would suppose the continuous production
by socialised labour of increasing quantities (in terms of value) of both
means of consumption and means of production, and, at the same
time, the continuous profitable sale of everything produced. Dr.
Popper and others talk of “a communist utopia”. However that may
be, that this should happen is a capitalist utopia. It has never happened
yet. And as a result of interruptions in the circulation, production
keeps on being disrupted, poverty is perpetuated and resources are
wasted or destroyed.
With capitalists competing for profit the whole circulation of capital
cannot possibly be managed, since no management, not even the most
well-advised capitalist state, has simultaneous control over all the
factors involved. Breakdowns and disruptions keep occurring in one
212
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
or another stage of the process; workers demand too much pay, or
withhold their labour; investors don’t invest enough in new capital
equipment, or else invest too much; too much of something or other
is produced, or else not enough; and so on. Management is for ever
trying to repair the damage but never succeeds in preventing it, for
while they are coping with one trouble another is breaking out.
However, the proclivity of capitalist circulation to suffer interrup-
tions is not due simply to the difficulty of managing to adjust the
simultaneous independent profit-seeking operations of competing
blocks of capital. Neither the greatest luck nor the greatest judgment
could solve the problem. For, as Marx showed, the necessity for
capital to maximise its profit in order that capital should go on
accumulating out of surplus value means that, on the one hand, the
productive forces should go on being expanded without limit, while,
on the other hand, the share in the product going to the producers
should be restricted. “The last cause of all real crises”, wrote Marx
( Capital , Vol. 3, Chapter 30), “always remains the . . . restricted con-
sumption of the masses compared to the tendency of capitalist produc-
tion to develop the productive forces as if only the absolute power of
consumption of the entire society would be their limit.”
Formerly, interruptions in the circulation of capital took the regular
form of the ten-year “trade cycle”. But while the boom-bust rhythm
has been interrupted, that has not let the circulation of capital go on
without interruptions. It remains utopian to believe that it can ever
possibly do so — either providentially, through the operation of the
economic laws of the market, as earlier economists fondly believed, or
by the brilliant contrivances of good management, as modem ones
equally fondly incline to hope.
Meantime, although neither Dr. Popper nor the capitalist establish-
ment is pleased about it, the fact is that approximately one-third of
the people of the world have by now done away with capitalism (as
Marx advised and predicted) before it had even the chance of proving
to them the benefits it could confer. They are trying to build or have
built a planned socialist economy instead. A very high proportion of
the rest of the people, miserably poor, are in a state of revolt against
imperalism, against colonialism and neo-colonialism. In these circum-
stances the major capitalist powers are spending a significant proportion
of their national income on armaments — mainly for the purpose of
stopping impoverished peoples from shaking free of the grip of foreign
capital and to stop the socialist countries from helping them. These
THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM
213
armaments, and the local wars and escalations of wars in which some
of them are used, remain at once a threat to the peace of the world
and to the very existence of civilisation, and a crushing burden on
the people of the capitalist countries. We sustain them at our peril.
And if we can force the capitalist governments to stop their wars and
disarm, we can then hardly continue to save the capitalist interests
the armaments, armed forces and wars are protecting.
Moreover, whatever capitalist powers do (short of world war,
which would destroy them), the socialist powers will continue to
develop, and that at an accelerating pace, their own technological
resources. And the national liberation movements against imperialism
and neo-colonialism will continue to grow, whatever their disunity
and whatever setbacks they sustain in this or that place.
For how long can we suppose that such a situation, brought about
by the operation of “the absolute general law of capitalist accumula-
tion’, can continue? For some time more, perhaps, but not for ever.
The operation of the general law will, as Marx predicted, either bring
general ruin or else be terminated by the removal of the capitalist
relations which give rise to it.
And there is yet another factor of very great moment. The capitalist
powers have now started on the ioad of a new technological revolu-
tion. If they slow the pace of technological advance they will cut
away the foundations of their own affluence and be hopelessly out-
paced by the socialist powers. They will then be totally unable to
maintain their dominance over at present underdeveloped countries,
their economies will stagnate, and very serious consequences in the
way of unemployment and impoverishment will be upon them. On
the other hand, if they carry on, and if they develop vast new resources
of energy for powering fully automated production, how are they to
secure the planned development of the economy, with full employ-
ment, if they insist that the key means of production should be
privately owned and that the whole employed labour force should
be wage-workers whose labour contributes to private profit? Unem-
ployment on a huge scale would result, and not all the bread and
circuses borrowed from the ancient Romans in the days of their
decadence would be able to save the doomed system.
If, then, Dr. Popper and others demand why we should heed the
advice of Marx that capitalism should be abolished, when some of us
are doing so well out of it, the short answer is that we cannot afford
not to. We are living in a fools’ paradise if we remain blind to the
214
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
operation of “the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation”.
It is overall true that as capital accumulates the workers’ conditions
must deteriorate.
In socialism, the accumulation of capital, in the sense of accumula-
tion of resources out of which social production can be expanded,
has no tendency to lead to the deterioration of the conditions of
workers. On the contrary, the more social capital accumulates the
higher can standards of life be raised. The accumulation of resources is
then the condition for raising the standards of all workers ( all , not
some) up to a high level, for lightening labour, making hours of
necessary work shorter and the means for enjoyment of leisure greater.
This, Marxism concludes, is the condition of affairs which we must
organise to achieve — or else perish.
As we have seen, Marx expounded as the basic law of all social
development the law that relations of production must always be
brought into conformity with the development of forces of produc-
tion. When, from being forms of development of production,
relations of production become fetters on it, a social revolution is
needed to change the social system. The need to get rid of capitalism
and replace it by socialism is the need to get rid of production relations
which have become fetters on the growing forces of production. The
“ absolute general law of capitalist accumulation 9 is the concise statement of
the way in which capitalist relations act as fetters on production. Instead of
productive resources being accumulated for the purpose of raising the
general standards of life of the producers, capitalist accumulation takes
place at the expense of general welfare, is accompanied by wastage of
material resources and human capacities, and impoverishes producers
at the same time as it enriches owners of capital.
It may be added that, as Lenin said, Marx dealt not only with
relations of production but “went on to trace the superstructure
corresponding to these relations of production”. He demonstrated the
consequences in the encouragement of individual selfishness and greed,
in conflicts and grabs, in speculation and corruption, in frustration,
waste and needless suffering, in political chicanery and political op-
pression and wars. Thus his economic analysis, “strictly confined to the
relations of production between the members of society”, succeeds in
explaining and interpreting the hateful experience of the members of
society caught up in the economic system. The same theme which is
explored by poets, painters, musicians and novelists in bourgeois
society is given its scientific exposition by Marxism.
4
SOCIAL REVOLUTION AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING
I. THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION
A basic change in relations of production would mean drastic inter-
ference with the rights of property — at the present time, the ownership
of capital — and this would constitute a social revolution. It is this
which is so widely regarded as unthinkable or, at any rate, as not to
be proposed in works of science which might qualify for research
grants. Dr. Popper undoubtedly speaks for the whole establishment
in stating that a revolution is one of the very worst things that could
possibly happen to us.
A revolution, he says, involves “the prolonged use of violence”
which “may lead in the end to the loss of freedom, since it is liable to
bring about not the dispassionate rule of reason but the rule of the
strong man” (2-OS. 151). Nay more, it “destroys the institutional
and traditional framework of society . . . once they destroy tradition,
civilisation disappears with it . . . they have returned to the beasts”
(CR. 343-4). And in a more dispassionate vein he argues that “it is not
reasonable to assume that a complete reconstruction of our social
world would lead at once to a workable system. Rather we should
expect that, owing to lack of experience, many mistakes would be
made. . . .” (i-OS. 167).
But not only would “revolutionary methods . . . increase unneces-
sary suffering” and “lead to more and more violence” (CR. 343), but
the “humanitarian aims” which revolutionaries pursue can be achieved
without any revolution. Once it is admitted that, as experience proves,
social benefits can be won under capitalism, there is no reason “why
the workers, who have learned by experience that they can improve
their lot by gradual reform, should not prefer to stick to this method
. . . why they should not compromise with the bourgeoisie and leave
it in possession of the means of production rather than risk all their
gains by making demands liable to lead to violent dashes”. Gradual
reform can continue, and “there is no logical necessity why gradual
reform, achieved by compromise, should lead to the complete destruc-
tion of the capitalist system” (2-OS. 155). Anyway, Dr. Popper argues,
those who believe in smashing everything up would have to undertake
21 6
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
gradual reconstruction afterwards, so it would be far more sensible
to get on with gradual construction in the first place and forget the
smash-up (i-OS. 1 68).
Dr. Popper takes a rather apocalyptic view of revolution. He
assumes that if once capitalist ownership of means of production were
abolished everything would crash, that if private capital were prevented
from making profits out of exploiting wage-labour civilisation would
end. So he cries: “They destroy tradition !” “Civilisation disappears !”
“They have returned to the beasts !” and (a bit of an anti-climax)
“Many mistakes would be made!” He is, of course, justified in his
last apprehension — for people always do make mistakes, whatever
they do. But as for “tradition” and “civilisation”, it would seem that
Dr. Popper’s sweeping statements were made under some sort of
emotional stress, for they are certainly “not reasonable”.
Do “tradition” and “civilisation”, in the senses in which these may
be regarded as something to be preserved, mean specifically capitalist
tradition or capitalist civilisation? No, for tradition and civilisation
are more permanent, more lasting, than particular production relations ;
civilisation and norms of civilised living are developed by men through
the ages, so that advances made within certain production relations
are not lost but carried further under new production relations, which
are “higher” in the sense that they correspond to a higher development
of forces of production. To develop civilisation and civilised living,
people have to go on developing their forces of production ; and when
production relations are acting as a fetter upon the utilisation of new
forces of production they have to be changed, or else civilisation and
its traditions may suffer degeneration instead of renewal.
Of course, if one considers only particular local traditions or
pieces of tradition, or particular local or specialised amenities of
civilisation, it would have to be admitted that they are frequently
destroyed or disappear — and a good thing too. For example, there
is a parliamentary tradition in Britain that the Chamber of the House
of Commons should not contain seats for all the members. This
tradition was successfully upheld by both Sir Winston Churchill and
Lord Atdee when the House was rebuilt after the Second World War;
but no doubt a socialist revolution in Britain would destroy this
particular tradition. Again, the kind of civilised or gracious living
associated with the ownership of town and country mansions, with
grouse moors and large staffs of servants, is already disappearing, and
would completely disappear if there were a socialist revolution. But
SOCIAL REVOLUTION AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING 217
are such destructions of traditions and disappearances of civilisation a
bad thing? Only a few would regret them, and their loss would
scarcely return the rest of mankind “to the beasts”. But if by “civilisa-
tion” and “tradition” is meant, more generally, the ever-developing
production by and distribution to the members of society of the
necessities and comforts of life, with the development of the sciences
and the arts, and -of social freedom and justice, then there is no reason
at all to conclude that a change in the relations of production, calculated
to promote the development of social production for social welfare,
would destroy tradition or cause civilisation to disappear. Indeed, a
far more pressing danger arises from the growth and continuation of
certain traditions of commercialism, corrupt politics and militarism
fostered by the existing capitalist set up, and the greatest danger of all
from the stock-piling of nuclear weapons. If mankind should ever be
“returned to the beasts” by the destruction of civilisation, it will be
as a result of nuclear war unleashed by mad imperialists (and all this
claptrap about “the institutional and traditional framework of society”
is a part of the phraseology of such madness).
Dr. Popper’s apocalyptic visions arise simply and solely from his
obsession with the idea that revolution involves “the prolonged use
of violence” and “more and more violence”. It is this violence which
he sees as doing the damage. And he represents Marxism as in part a
fatalistic prediction of violence, in part a conspiracy to incite violence.
For Marxism, though not for Dr. Popper, the word “revolution”
has a precise significance defined in terms of Marx’s theory of social
development and class struggle.
Hitherto, the development of relations of production, that is to say,
of forms of ownership of means of production and appropriation of the
products of labour, has divided society into antagonistic classes. In
any particular social formation, a particular dominant class maintains
its existence by exploiting the masses of producers in a particular way,
and preventing other exploiting classes from developing as rivals
their own methods of exploitation. The political system is the means
by which this is managed and a particular form of ownership and
appropriation of products of labour is imposed upon the whole of
society. A revolution, then, is a change in the political system of such
an order that another class comes to power and deprives the former
ruling class of its opportunities to maintain itself by its former
methods of exploitation. A revolution thus effects a change in the
relations of production. And it is a phenomenon peculiar to and
218
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
typical of class-divided society, where there are exploiting and ex-
ploited classes.
There have been many revolutions recorded by history, and all of
them have been violent (involving, indeed, ‘‘the prolonged use of
violence”). The cause of this universal violence is clear. Ruling classes
have maintained their rule only by aggression and violent repression
of their subjects, and the only way to get rid of them has been by
violently opposing them. Revolutions in the past have, however, by
no means been distinguished as regrettable outbreaks of violence
interrupting periods of calm and peaceful progress and putting in
jeopardy the gains of civilisation. There has always been violence and
war, revolutions have been conducted by violence and war, and in
them violence and war have been made the vehicles by which men
have managed to get rid of old forms of property which fettered social
production, the material basis of civilisation.
Marxist analysis claims to demonstrate that what is on the agenda
now is socialist (or “proletarian”) revolution, and to demonstrate, too,
the ways in which this must differ from all previous revolutions.
In previous revolutions ruling exploiting classes succumbed to the
hostility not only of masses who were exploited but of other classes of
exploiters or would-be exploiters. The working masses had to do
most of the slogging, but new exploiters reaped the reward and
came to power.
In the past, slave revolts or peasant revolts weakened the ruling
classes, but the invariable upshot was the defeat and dispersal of slave
or peasant insurgents and the reconsolidation of exploitation by either
the old or new exploiters. In modem history it has been typical of
bourgeois revolutions that at a certain point the bourgeoisie rounded
upon and disarmed the insurgent masses who had been making the
pace at the start, and entered into a compromise with the defeated
counter-revolution. In bourgeois revolutions there has always been an
incipient democratic revolution, with demands going far beyond what
the bourgeoisie was disposed to grant. (This is illustrated by the English,
American and French revolutions, and by the European revolutionary
movements of 1848; when it came to the Russian revolution in 1905
and 1917 there was already in existence a well-organised industrial
working class with revolutionary socialist leadership, and the result
was the socialist revolution of 1917.)
But wherever the bourgeoisie comes to power and a fully capitalist
economy is created, the ruling bourgeoisie no longer faces any other
SOCIAL REVOLUTION AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING 219
rival group of exploiters. There emerges a direct confrontation of
exploiters and exploited, uncomplicated by any issues of substituting
some new form of exploitation for the existing form. Thus the single
issue becomes that of either continuing capitalist exploitation or ending
it by depriving the capitalist class of political power and instituting
social ownership of the principal means of production. Thus whereas
previous revolutions substituted new forms of exploitation for old,
the issue now is to end exploitation once for all.
This confrontation of classes, with the issue it poses, exists in all
developed capitalist countries today. Dr. Popper, incidentally, raises
some rather irrelevant objections to the recognition of this fact. “We
must be prepared to find,” he says, “that a ve’-y considerable middle
class exists (or that a new middle class has arisen) and that it may
co-operate with the other non-proletarian classes against a bid for
power by the workers; and nobody can say for certain what the
outcome of such a contest would be. Indeed, statistics no longer show
any tendency for the number of industrial workers to increase in
relation to the other classes of the population” (2-OS. 156).
By a “middle class” and “a new middle class” he presumably means
all kinds of workers on their own account, and professional workers ;
and by “the other non-proletarian classes” he means chiefly working
farmers and peasants. What he says about these classes is quite true,
but it does not in the last alter the fact that the only alternative to
continuing capitalist exploitation is now to end all exploitation: there
is no question of any of these classes ousting the big capitalists and
setting up some new sort of exploitation of their own, but only, as he
quite rightly says, of whether or not they will support “a bid for
power by the workers”. Clearly, therefore, and as Marxists have
always said, it is an important element in contemporary socialist
tactics to seek to win the support of these classes for socialism, and
not to antagonise them by a narrow sectarian concern with the
interests of industrial workers alone. As for the decreasing proportion
of “industrial workers”, by that he means, presumably, the relative
increase in the number of technicians, “white collar” workers, and
“brain workers” of one kind and another. True, there is such an
increase ; and these are exactly the sorts of people who will be needed
in large numbers to build a modern socialist economy. Dr. Popper,
in fact, has understood the Marxist theory of socialist revolution so
little, that he cites circumstances which confirm it as insuperable
objections.
220
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
In the socialist revolution the exploited classes play an altogether
new role. They are not the unruly rank and file of the revolution, but
its organisers and leaders.
This difference is illustrated by the difference between the role of
the organised working-class movement in the modem class struggle
and that of the so-called “mob” in certain phases of bourgeois revolu-
tions. The “mob” would come together in a spontaneous way, driven
usually by anger at some sudden deterioration of conditions that made
the already miserable condition of the poor desperate (often a rise in
food prices, as demonstrated by G. Rude in The Crowd in the French
Revolution ). It was a very formidable force, but without permanent
organisation or aims, or its own permanent leadership. Its swift and
sometimes destructive activities could pave the way for other classes
gaining their ends, and then the mob itself could be dispersed. This
“mob” has become transformed into the organised democratic labour
movement, a far more formidable force when it unites to exert its
strength, its aims clearly delineated, and neither destructive nor
riotous but disciplined and not easily dispersed, and fully capable of
staffing from its own ranks the entire legislative and executive
apparatus of modem society.
The modern working class is able to play this new role because the
conditions of modern industry lead to its becoming organised and
educated, and to the formation of competent groups of socialist
intellectuals and political leaders of the labour movement. Thus it is
an exploited class able not only to kick against exploitation, as the
exploited have always done, but to manage affairs when the rule of
its exploiters is ended.
Another feature of socialist revolution is its world-wide international
character.
The local development of capitalism in only a few countries had
the effect (the inevitable effect, if Dr. Popper will forgive the expres-
sion) of bringing the entire world into the orbit of capitalist exploita-
tion. The world became divided up into spheres of exploitation of a
comparatively few capitalist powers. With them, capital has developed
to the monopoly phase, with the merging of industrial and finance
capital, and the export of capital ; capitalism developed into the phase
of imperialism. This meant that throughout the world the struggle
of exploited people against their being exploited involved, beyond
issues of kicking free from whatever local feudal or proto-feudal
forms of exploitation they suffered, the final struggle for emancipation
SOCIAL REVOLUTION AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING
221
from the exploitation of capital. Besides, comparatively “primitive”
people, whose tribal way of life still retained many communal features,
found themselves suddenly subjected to capitalist forms of exploitation
totally foreign to their own phase of social development, and were
flung into the struggle against it. Thus the impingement of capitalist
exploitation stirred up the whole world, and forced on the working
masses everywhere, whatever their own prior stage of economic and
social development, the issue of resisting capitalist exploitation and,
therefore, the issue that if they were ever to be rid of it they must
take the road of socialism.
There has thus begun, and continues to go on, a world-wide process
of socialist revolution, in which particular local movements are con-
tributory parts; a world-wide process of emancipation from the
exploitation of capital, and therefore from all exploitation. This is
something quite new in the history of revolutions. Hitherto there
have been only local revolutions, in which local people upset the rule
of local exploiters and other local exploiters took their place. But
now every revolutionary movement is up against the same opponents,
and all the local movements, whether their members fully understand
it or not, add up to a world-wide movement which cannot relent
until the exploitation of man by man is ended throughout the world.
It cannot relent because, although particular groups of people may
suffer defeat or turn their coats, the same world-wide circumstances
which drove them into action will continue to operate, and drive others
into action.
The words “socialist revolution” denote, therefore, not particular
local revolutionary events (a “bid for power” or “desperate uprising”,
as Dr. Popper puts it) which are repeated, or which Communists
predict will be repeated, in much the same way at different places
and times, but rather a whole epoch, a whole process of disturbance
of social relations and institutions, continuing over a long period of
time (perhaps a century, perhaps longer) and involving the whole
world. To say, as Marxists say, that this is the epoch of the socialist
revolution, and that socialist revolution is inevitable, is not to prophesy
that a particular sort of armed uprising is fated to occur in each par-
ticular place (in Britain, for example, where far from predicting an
armed uprising the Communist Party’s programme includes no such
thing, and regards it as not only unpractical but undesirable) ; it is to
say that mankind is now unavoidably involved throughout the world
in a struggle against capitalist forms of exploitation, that the removal
222
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
of exploitation has already begun, and that the struggle against it
cannot but go on until it is done away with everywhere.
2. SOCIAL ENGINEERING
According to Dr. Popper, the rational alternative to the revolutionary
overthrow of the entire “institutional and traditional framework of
society”, which he says Marxists think inevitable, is piecemeal “social
engineering”. By “social engineering” he means “the planning and
construction of institutions, with the aim, perhaps, of arresting or of
controlling or of quickening impending social developments”
(PH. 45).
Social engineering must be, he says, “piecemeal”. That is to say,
it starts with institutions as they are, examines in what ways they
work badly, either by causing preventable human inconvenience or
suffering, or failing to alleviate it, and then introduces reforms to
make them work better. “Blueprints for piecemeal engineering are
comparatively simple,” he informs us. “They are blueprints for single
institutions, for health and unemployment insurance, for instance, or
arbitration courts, or anti-depression budgeting, or educational
reform.” And he continues : “If they go wrong, the damage is not very
great, and a readjustment not very difficult” (i-OS. 159).
This sort of social engineering advances by trial and error, it becomes
ever more effective and successful as practical experience accumulates,
and in this way it can bid fair “to be supported by the approval and
agreement of a great number of people” (i-OS. 158), rather than
causing people to fall out with one another, as is likely to result from
more ambitious and far-reaching projects of social reconstruction. It
goes hand in hand with the development of the social sciences. For,
says Dr. Popper, “the social sciences have developed very largely
through the criticism of proposals for social improvements or, more
precisely, through attempts to find out whether or not some particular
economic or political action is likely to produce an expected, or
desired, result” (PH. 58).
In one of his more eloquent passages, Dr. Popper states the credo of
the social engineer: “Work for the elimination of concrete evils rather
than for the realisation of abstract goods. Do not aim at establishing
happiness by political means. Rather aim at the elimination of concrete
miseries. Or, in more practical terms: fight for the elimination of
poverty by direct means — for example, by making sure everybody
SOCIAL REVOLUTION AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING
223
has a minimum income. Or fight against epidemics and disease by
erecting hospitals and schools of medicine. Fight illiteracy as you fight
criminality. But do all this by direct means. Choose what you consider
the most urgent evil of the society in which you live, and try patiently
to convince people that we can get rid of it.” That, he informs us,
provides “a simple formula or recipe for distinguishing between what
I consider to be admissible plans for social reform and inadmissible
utopian blueprints” (CR. 361).
In opposition to genuine or “piecemeal” social engineering, Dr.
Popper castigates what he calls “utopian social engineering”. According
to this, it is of no use “tinkering” with this or that institution; what has
to be done is to reconstruct the entire fabric of society. First “we must
determine our ultimate political aim, or the Ideal State ; . . . only then
can we begin to consider the best ways and means for its realisation,
and to draw up a plan for practical action” (i-OS. 157).
Dr. Popper criticises projects for “utopian social engineering” on
several grounds. First, to reconstruct society as a whole there must
needs be a dictatorship, which would have to be imposed on society
by violence and would create a state of affairs much worse than any
it was proposed to remedy. Second, it is not true that only by a
complete reconstruction of society could social evils be remedied, for
experience shows that much can be achieved piecemeal, by tackling
them little by little and one by one. Third, in his enthusiasm for
“abstract goods” the utopian actually disregards concrete evils which
are under his very nose. “Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful
world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and
now”, Dr. Popper implores. “Our fellow men have a claim to our
help” (CR. 361). To help them effectively we must tackle the im-
mediate evils they are suffering, whereas the utopian condemns this
as mere “tinkering”, believing that what is needed is nothing less
than complete reconstruction of the whole society.
Marx may have argued against “utopian socialism”, Dr. Popper
continues, but nevertheless Marxism embraces the chief error of
“utopianism”. This is the belief “that nothing short of a complete
eradication of the offending social system will do”. What distinguishes
Marxism from other utopian creeds is the “historicist” theory that
eradication of the social system is fated to happen by the laws of
history. According to Dr. Popper, what Marxists call “scientific” as
opposed to “utopian socialism” does not consist in working out what
to do in order to free mankind from exploitation on the basis of
224
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
understanding how causes may be set in motion in order to produce
effects (which is what in other spheres engineers trained in science
normally do). On the contrary, it consists in “blindly” believing that
socialism will be brought about by inexorable historical necessity.
Therefore, says Dr. Popper, “Marx condemns in fact all social engineer-
ing. . . . He denounces the faith in a rational planning of social insti-
tutions as altogether unrealistic, since society must grow according to
the laws of history and not according to our rational plans. All we can
do, he asserts, is to lessen the birthpangs of the historical process”
(i-OS. 164).
So Dr. Popper presents us with an alternative: to choose between
“utopian” and “piecemeal” social engineering. On the one hand, we
may choose to believe that nothing short of the complete eradication
of the present social system will benefit humanity, and that therefore
it is of no use working out rational plans for improving our institutions
because the only practical thing to do is to speed the fateful day when
they will all be smashed up. On the other hand, we may reject any
idea of a radical change in the social system and choose to keep on
tinkering with single institutions, so as to satisfy bit by bit, so far as
the present system allows, the various claims of our fellow men.
This choice, as we might indeed expect when it is presented by
Dr. Popper, is the choice of Wonderland. “In that direction lives a
Hatter; and in that direction lives a March Hare. Visit either you like;
they’re both mad.” “But I don’t want to go among mad people”,
Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that: we’re all mad here.” Let us
see if we cannot, in this predicament, fare better than Alice.
A practical socialist policy does not, as Marx made perfectly clear
in his criticism of “utopian socialism”, take off from the enunciation
of an “ultimate political aim, or the Ideal State”.. As for “the Ideal
State”, it is equally a utopia whether it is supposed to be realised, as
the utopian socialists believed, by everyone becoming convinced of
its rationality, or, as Dr. Popper says Marxists believe, by inexorable
processes of historical necessity. A practical socialist policy takes off
from the scientific analysis of the mode of exploitation in modern
society, the consequences of this exploitation, and the practical long-
term possibilities of removing it and instituting relations of production
which will permit the utilisation and development of modern forces
of production for purposes of the general welfare. It then takes into
account what sort of political organisation and policy will be necessary
to this end, and what sort of opposition it may expect to encounter.
SOCIAL REVOLUTION AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING
225
As for “our ultimate political aim”, this is not presented as “the Ideal
State”, but as the aim which follows from the scientific analysis of the
actual human situation. It is presented as demonstrably practicable, and
as demonstrably necessary, in view of the actual human situation.
Thus the question posed is not one of choosing between, on the one
hand, the utopian aim of an “Ideal State”, to realise which requires
the violent suppression of the existing order, and on the other hand,
the rational practice of “piecemeal social engineering”, tinkering with
existing institutions so as to alleviate hardships by trying to meet the
claims of everyone concerned in them. The question is one of whether,
on the one hand, to accept the existing mode of exploitation, or on the
other hand, to examine what is wrong with it, what can be done to
remove it, and what issues to tackle and what constructive proposals
to make, step by step, in order to do so.
It is totally untrue, as stated in the credo of “social engineering”,
that revolutionary socialists aim only at “the realisation of abstract
goods”, whereas the “piecemeal” social engineers “rather aim at the
elimination of concrete miseries”. Communists “aim at the elimination
of concrete miseries”, and it is their consciousness of these “miseries”
and of their roots in the existing system of exploitation, that makes
them revolutionary socialists. We do not oppose capitalism in order
to realise “abstract goods”, but in order to “fight for the elimination
of poverty by direct means”. That which Dr. Popper misnames
“social engineering”, on the other hand, will allow “concrete miseries”
to be eliminated only in so far as their elimination is compatible with
maintaining capitalist exploitation. There is no occasion at all for Dr.
Popper to admonish us: “Our fellow men have a claim to our help.”
We know they have. That is why we are in favour, for instance, of
“erecting hospitals and schools of medicine” to the full extent necessary
“to fight against epidemics and disease”, and are not impressed by the
admonitions of social engineers who tell us that the programme can
be only a limited one because, meantime, we have to pay for the costs
of fighting communism.
Dr. Popper advises us: “Do not aim at establishing happiness by
political means.” For, he goes on to explain, “it is my thesis that human
misery is the most urgent problem of a rational public policy and that
happiness is not such a problem. The attainment of happiness should
be left to our private endeavours” (CR. 361).
It is possible “by political means” to remove the causes of poverty
and war, and to provide everyone with the material means for useful
226
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
work, education, leisure, comfort and the protection of health. Even
that, of course, would still not suffice to “establish happiness”; for
whether individuals are happy or not will still depend on how they
treat each other, and how each behaves, in personal life. But all the
same, it is pretty ridiculous (or possibly cold-blooded) to pose “human
misery” as “the most urgent problem of a rational public policy”,
in opposition to “happiness”. A politics which really tackles “the
problem of human misery” is not indifferent to fostering the pursuit
of happiness, and can certainly go further towards “establishing” it
than one which is content simply to leave it “to our private en-
deavours”. The social engineer clears a slum, builds a council estate,
dumps people in it, and tells them: “Your happiness now depends on
your private endeavours”. Could not more be done to remove the
frustrations and help establish the happiness of the council tenants?
Revolutionary change of the social system is not opposed to “re-
form”. No politically serious socialist, and certainly no Communist,
ever says: Either eradicate the social system, or else reform existing
institutions — you cannot do both. We always propose and we always
support such reforms as will benefit the people. We do this because
“our fellow men have a claim to our help”. It is not Communists who
look on with indifference at preventable human miseries. Nor do we
tolerate miseries because we believe that the more miserable people
are the more likely they are to support our plan for a violent revolution.
That is just one of Dr. Popper’s smears. On the contrary, it is certain
“social engineers” of the ruling classes who look on with indifference,
believing that if these people can be kept down they can be kept out,
and that it will be good for profits. Every Communist is a social
reformer. And practical ardour for social reform is not in the least
incompatible with seeking to eradicate the social system, but is rather
a necessary quality of effective revolutionary leadership.
It was Lenin (in What is to be Done) who said that Communists
should always be “the tribunes of the people”. Those who hope to
mobilise a great movement to transform society must know how to
respond to every grievance and every demand of every section and,
indeed, of every individual that composes the movement. A movement
that will be able to unite and organise to achieve a new order of society
must be composed of persons and organisations who will never take
any imposition lying down, but who know how to better their con-
dition and not let others worsen it. And those whom people will trust
as leaders are those who have shown that both heart and mind are
SOCIAL REVOLUTION AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING 22J
involved in protest against every deprivation and every injustice
suffered by even the most insignificant or undeserving individual.
3 . REFORM AND REVOLUTION
Revolutionary change of the social system is the alternative, not to
reform, but to the policy of allowing only such reform as can be
accomplished without jeopardising the profits of the ruling class.
According to Dr. Popper, “it is not so very difficult to reach agree-
ment by discussion on what are the most urgent social reforms”. So it
is not difficult to get agreed the measures of “piecemeal social engi-
neering”. That is one of its great virtues, he says, for in this way “we
can get somewhere by arguing ... we can profit here from the attitude
of reasonableness. We can learn by listening to concrete claims, by
patiently trying to assess them as impartially as we can, and by con-
sidering ways of meeting them without creating worse evils”
(CR. 361).
This, says Dr. Popper, “is a fact, and not a very strange fact”.
Certainly, it is “not a very strange fact” that agreement on some
“urgent social reform” should sometimes be “not so very difficult”,
when, on the one hand, there would be a great deal of protest if the
urgent need for reform were ignored and, on the other hand, the
agreed reform impartially but generously acknowledges the “concrete
claims” of capitalist vested interests. Thus, for example, there is general
agreement in Britain today that something must be done to meet the
housing situation. And although some disagreement is expressed as to
the proportionate parts that private enterprise and public authorities
should play in the housing programme, no very serious disagreements
break out so long as rent, interest and profit are duly upheld. Housing
may be, with a considerable measure of agreement, subsidised out of
public funds, so long as the subsidy guarantees that the moneylenders
shall be paid in full. So isn’t that “reasonable”? Surely the rehousing
of homeless families removes a positive evil, and creates no “worse
evil”, even if the condition for it is that vested interests shall get their
rake off? And even though the job is done very slowly, and is inter-
rupted whenever the government declares a “crisis”, it is still claimed
that this way of doing it is the best way. For the removal of the vested
interests which obstruct an all-out effort to solve the housing problem
could well prove a “worse evil”, because they would object, govern-
ment would have to suppress their objections, and that would be
228
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
“dictatorship” ; at all events, it would put an end to the desirable but
“not very strange fact” of agreement.
In actual fact in capitalist society — and this, too, is “not very strange”
— all “agreements”, whether they concern such matters as social
services or wages, hours, working conditions and holidays, are arrived
at as accommodations between opposed interests — for instance, those
of people wanting cheap and good houses, and those of moneylenders
and landlords who want interest and rent; or those of workers wanting
more real wages, and those of employers wanting more profits.
It may then be said — and, indeed, Dr. Popper does say so — that
the fact that affairs get arranged through these sorts of accommodations
means that the class struggle has been abated and is on the way to dis-
appearance. But, on the contrary, these accommodations demonstrate the
continued existence of the class struggle , and are its outcome .
First of all, it was the conduct of class struggle which led to the
position where they could be made at all. If there were no class organ-
isations of the working class, which have grown strong enough and
fight hard enough to gain recognition, the ruling class would not be
so accommodating. And secondly, what can be got depends on the
complex balance of effective pressures behind the competing claims of
competing class interests. If the working people want to gain more
benefits, and stop vested interests from robbing them of them, they
must fight more determinedly and harder.
Persons in ministries and offices drafting blueprints for making this
or that improvement in this or that institution or service, and other
persons sitting critically commenting on them in the London School
of Economics, or getting on their hind legs in parliament, may imagine
that they are, like wise and impartial legislators, performing judicious
operations of piecemeal social engineering. But they are not in fact
like engineers working out designs for a new bridge or, maybe, for
strengthening one which is failing to stand up under the load of
heavier traffic. They are seeking to control people and shape their social
relations, and dealing not with mechanical but with social stresses;
and what they can plan, and what actually happens to their plans,
depends on the actual power that is exerted in the social institutions by
conflicting class interests.
The occurrence of so-called “piecemeal social engineering” is only a
particular contemporary manifestation of the class struggle between
capital and labour, and its laws of operation are not those of engineering
but of class struggle.
SOCIAL REVOLUTION AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING 229
The fact is not very strange that, so long as the situation remains such
that accommodations can be reached which do not vitally impair the
accumulation of capital and which, at the same time, bestow benefits
on labour, such accommodations will go on being reached. It has never
happened, and is not likely to happen now, that an exploiting class will
be removed from power so long as it is able to make substantial
concessions to the interests of other classes. What goes on in the
meantime is the pressure of the one class for those concessions, and
the resistance of the other class to every infringement of its interests.
The outcome is the expression of this immensely complex social inter-
action. It cannot be decided simply by reference to the blueprints of
“social engineers”. They delude themselves when they fancy that the
backrooms where they have set up their drawing-boards have been
miraculously transformed into engineering workshops strategically
placed in the corridors of power, and that everyone outside is just
waiting patiently for claims to be met.
The necessity for the eventual socialist solution of the contradictions
of capitalism arises from the fact that capital cannot indefinitely go on
in the same way exploiting labour whose forces of production are
being continually revolutionised, and cannot indefinitely go on draw-
ing raw materials and tribute from industrially underdeveloped
dependencies. Social strains are unavoidable, and cannot but issue in
revolutionary crises, when the ruling class can no longer go on ruling
in the old way and is divided as to what to do, and the popular organ-
isations are determined on a change which the rulers cannot concede.
It is at such moments that the actual organisation and influence gained
by revolutionary scientific socialism in the preceding years becomes
decisive; and that the illusions of “social engineering” become manifest.
They are revealed as no more than what Marx (analysing earlier class
s truggles in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte) called the
“imbecility which holds those infected by it fast in an imaginary
world and robs them of all sense, all memory, all understanding of
the rude external world”.
In “the rude external world” the fact which escapes the notice of
all who dream of engineering a perpetual motion machine of reform
by agreement is the fact (about which we shall have a lot more to say
presently) that control of political power is in the hands of the big capitalist
interests. They keep the power; and though they may discreetly keep
it in reserve most of the time, it is there to be unmasked when occasion
arises and exercised with authoritarian violence, both in foreign wars
230
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
for the defence of capitalist profit and in repression at home* No
schemes of social engineering can get round the fact that at some time
or another this power will have to be challenged and overcome.
Marx is rather severely reproached by Dr. Popper for having written,
in the Preface to Capital , that “when a society has discovered the
natural law that determines its own movement, even then it can
neither overleap the natural phases of its own evolution, nor shuffle
them out of the world by a stroke of the pen. But this much it can do :
it can shorten and lessen the birthpangs”. He interprets this as meaning
that Communists lack any policy based on working out on scientific
principles what can be done for social betterment. For they believe
that a violent revolution is historically inevitable and that therefore it is
useless to attempt reforms and the only thing to do is by revolutionary
propaganda and conspiracy to hasten the day of reckoning. This is
“a peculiar variety of fatalism”, he says, and as such scientifically
untenable and unacceptable to “social engineers” (PH. 51).
But the scientific sense of Marx’s statement is quite clear, and so is
its truth.
Marx’s fundamental discovery of “the natural law” governing
social changes was the discovery of the universal limiting conditions
of men’s conduct of their social relations — much as fundamental
discoveries of thermodynamics, for example, were discoveries of
limiting conditions for the exchange of energy in physical systems,
namely, that energy is conserved and entropy increases. Marx’s
fundamental discovery was that relations of production have to be
adapted to forces of production. So what was he saying in the Preface
to Capital ? He was saying that to discover this law is not to discover
how to abrogate it, how to “overleap” its limitations — any more than
to discover the laws of thermodynamics is to discover how to abrogate
them by constructing perpetual motion machines. But it is to discover
what to expect to happen and how to act in concrete situations governed
by the law— just as discoveries of thermodynamics are discoveries about
how to make engines more efficient. Hence Marx said that when we
have discovered that relations of production have to be adapted to
forces of production, that does not enable us to contract out of the
painful business of involvement in the processes of this adaptation,
but it does enable us to work out ways of speeding them up and
making them less painful.
The social circumstances we are in (so Marxism explains to us) are
governed by universal laws of social development, and so valid
SOCIAL REVOLUTION AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING 2 } I
expectations must be limited. Some things are possible, and other
things are not. The indefinite and prosperous continuance of capitalism,
free from revolutionary crises, is one of those that are not possible.
On the other hand, if we are to develop and utilise ‘the forces of
production we have already got for social welfare, we must find how to
bring into being relations of production within which production can
be organised for welfare. It is up to us how long it takes and how
much we suffer: by militant organisation and wise policy we can
“lessen the birthpangs”, but by no possible means can we dodge the
issues, the crises and conflicts which the existing situation entails.
This concept that we cannot “overleap” the consequences of the
law that production relations must be adapted to productive forces,
but that we can “lessen the birthpangs” occasioned by their becoming
adapted, makes both scientific and political good sense. For example,
capitalism could be let develop into the final crisis of World War Three —
but this is not inevitable, and we can work to prevent it. Again,
capitalism could be let develop the automation of production under
private enterprise to the point where it creates vast unemployment.
It is possible that things will be let develop in the U.S.A., for example,
to the point where there are millions of desperate displaced people
without support and without hope, making chaos and bloodshed a
certainty; but this need not happen if in good time organised labour,
in an orderly way, takes over control of the situation.
The phrase “social engineering” is, all things considered, a pretty
inept one. Those to whom Dr. Popper applies it are, if they can be
called “engineers” at all, at all events remarkably innocent of scientific
theory, like engineers who, when a few wheels start turning, think they
have become masters of a perpetual motion machine. But if any sense
is to be given to the expression, it is the policy of a united labour
movement engaged in bringing into being and lessening the birth-
pangs of a new social order, which deserves to be called “social
engineering”.
5
THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL POWER
I. INSTITUTIONS
Social engineering, according to Dr. Popper’s conception, is concerned
with institutions and their management. The social engineer does not
directly deal with individuals, but he is both maintenance and con-
struction engineer for institutions.
Institutions (says Dr. Popper) become amenable to rational scienti-
fically directed social engineering operations when they are demo-
cratic. Non-democratic institutions cannot be engineered. For instance,
social engineers entering the court of the Khalif Harun al-Rashid
would have been liable to summary expulsion as unbelieving dogs,
if no worse ; their field of operation is in the democratic institutions
of modern capitalist society, where they are not merely tolerated but
rewarded. Social engineering is thus the product of democracy. It
was the development of democratic institutions that made possible
the rational practices of social engineering, instead of the crude
methods of violence which prevailed in earlier times; and their
continued development not only requires the services of social engi-
neering, but will be wrecked if violent methods of smashing up insti-
tutions are chosen in their place.
Dr. Popper thus sees social engineering as the democratic method
of conducting human affairs, in opposition to violence. “There are
only two kinds of government institutions,” he explains, “those which
provide for a change of the government without bloodshed, and those
which do not” (CR. 344). The former he calls democratic. If un-
democratic types of institutions prevail, then, obviously, violence is
the only means available for righting wrongs. “The use of violence”,
he concludes, “is justified only under a tyranny which makes reforms
without violence impossible, and it should have only one aim, that is,
to bring about a state of affairs which makes reforms without violence
possible” (2-OS. 151).
These simple truths about democratic institutions are not, he
charges, understood by Marxists. For, as we have already learned from
him, “Marx . . . denounces the faith in a rational planning of social
institutions as altogether unrealistic, since society must grow according
THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL POWER
233
to the laws of history and not according to our rational plans”. The
laws of history are those of the development of class struggles. Con-
sequently “Marxists have been taught to think in terms not of insti-
tutions but of classes”. But whereas “Marxists nowadays do not think
in terms of institutions . . . rationalists, on the contrary, are more
inclined to rely on institutions for controlling men. This is the main
difference” (CR. 345).
Since, then, Dr. Popper says that Marxists are taught not to “think
in terms of institutions”, let us see how he himself teaches us to think
in terms of them. For in this matter of teaching us how to “think in
terms of institutions”, he would have been well advised to attend to
several large chunks of opaque matter in his own eye before concerning
himself with motes in the eyes of his Marxist neighbours.
Human progress, says Dr. Popper, depends on the design and
working of institutions. “For institutions, like levers, are needed if we
want to achieve anything which goes beyond the power of our
muscles. Like machines, institutions multiply our powers for good
and evil. Like machines, they need intelligent supervision by someone
who understands their way of functioning and, most of all, their
purpose . . .” (i-OS. 67).
At the same time, the social engineer must remain cautiously aware
of what is called “the human element” in institutions. He “cannot
construct foolproof institutions, that is to say, institutions whose
functioning does not very largely depend on persons: institutions, at
best, can reduce the uncertainty of the personal element, by assisting
those who work for the aims for which the institutions are designed,
and on whose personal initiative and knowledge success largely
depends” (PH. 66-7).
Democratic institutions are not only the means we can use for
engineering social achievements, they also provide “checks” on what
would otherwise be the irresponsible power of certain individuals or
groups of individuals. “This leads to a new approach to the problem
of politics,” says Dr. Popper, “for it forces us to replace the question:
Who should rule? by the new question: How can we so organise
political institutions that bad and incompetent rulers can be prevented
from doing too much damage?” (i-OS. 121).
Thus he concludes: “Just as the task of the physical engineer is to
design machines and to remodel and service them, the task of the
piecemeal social engineer is to design social institutions and to re-
construct and run those already in existence. . . . The piecemeal tech-
234
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
nologist or engineer recognises that only a minority of social insti-
tutions are consciously designed, while the vast majority have just
‘grown’, as the undesigned results of human actions. But however
strongly he may be impressed by this important fact, as a technologist
or engineer he will look upon them from a ‘functional’ or ‘instrumental’
point of view. He will see them as means to certain ends, or as conver-
tible to the service of certain ends ; as machines rather than as organisms”
(PH. 64-5).
Although he admits that in the past “the vast majority have just
grown”, Dr. Popper asserts that institutions can be increasingly
engineered once the practice of engineering them has been instituted.
“Marx was quite right when he insisted that ‘history’ cannot be
planned on paper,” he assures us. “But institutions can be planned;
and they are being planned” (2-OS. 143).
In the course of this instruction on how to “think in terms of insti-
tutions”, Dr. Popper remarks, with justice, that “their construction
needs some knowledge of social regularities which impose limitations
upon what can be achieved by institutions. These limitations are
somewhat analogous, for instance, to the law of conservation of
energy, which amounts to the statement that we cannot build a
perpetual motion machine” (i-OS. 67). He has very little to say,
however, on this all-important topic of just what these “social regular-
ities” are and in what way they “impose limitations”. Surely, to “think
in terms of institutions”, this question needs looking into with care.
That is exactly what Marxists have done. And if only Dr. Popper had
done so, he too might have gained “some knowledge” of the “limita-
tions upon what can be achieved by institutions”. He says that, for
Marxists, “society must grow according to the laws of history and
not according to our rational plans”. But what Marxists actually
maintain is that “our rational plans” must take account of “the laws
of history” — that is to say, of “social regularities which impose
limitations upon what can be achieved by institutions”. Marxists
do not believe that plans for a democratic perpetual motion machine
are rational.
Dr. Popper has very rightly observed that no social life can be
carried on except through institutions of one sort and another. But
when he teaches us to “think in terms of institutions” his lessons
include no instruction about how institutions are instituted, under
what conditions and limitations, or how one influences or limits
another. The term itself is never clearly defined by him. “The term
THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL POWER 235
‘social institution' ”, he tells us, “is used here in a very wide sense, to
include bodies of a private as w T ell as of a public character. Thus
I shall use it to describe a business, whether it is a small shop or an
insurance company, and likewise a school, or an ‘educational system',
or a police force, or a church, or a law court” (PH. 65). He then goes
on to point out that the term bears an even “wider” sense than these
examples would suggest, and tells us: “Language is a social institution.
. . . Writing is a social institution. . . .” (PH. 154). Thus any product of
men's getting together in society, which regulates social activity, from
language to a small shop, is an institution. He attempts no sort of
analysis of institutions, as to their different kinds and their inter-
connections. And that being so, the best we may expect from him is
the best he gives us — the solemn assurance that, while institutions
“just grow” in some unspecified manner, and are never “foolproof”,
nevertheless some of them can be “planned”, subject always to un-
stated “limitations”. If that is to “think in terms of institutions”, then
by all means let us try to “think in terms of classes” and find out what
the limitations are.
We need not dispute that both languages and small shops are
institutions — for, of course, if the term is used in a wide enough sense
it can be made to cover both. But since the term is such a very “wide”
one, how are we to “think in terms of institutions” without getting
hopelessly muddled in the use of words? We must draw distinctions
between institutions, in terms of their social functions, and examine
how one set of institutions is conditioned by and grows out of another.
That is what Marx did (although he seldom used the word “insti-
tutions”, which was not so much in vogue when he was writing).
Here in Britain today the English language, the capitalist system, the
Marylebone Cricket Club, the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race,
Harrods, British Railways, the Prices and Incomes Board, Parliament,
the Board of Trade, the trade unions, political parties and the Secret
Police are all social institutions. If we want to know how we can use
our institutions, and what to do about them, distinctions must be
drawn and connections traced. Dr. Popper has stressed, for example,
the importance of making our institutions democratic. But the term
“democratic” applies only to some institutions, and makes no sense at
all in relation to others. For example, how could the English language
be democratic? Or a small shop, for that matter?
As I have said, institutions, in the widest sense, are products of our
getting together in society, and they regulate social activity. An
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
236
institution is anything socially instituted. The sense of the verb “insti-
tuted” can best be demonstrated by examples. Thus for communication
we use language, and also telephones. Both are social products, but a
telephone is a material implement, whereas a language is not. The
telephone is manufactured, and the language instituted. The material
object, a telephone, is not an institution — but the language we use
when we communicate by telephone is an institution; and so is the
Post Office (or in the U.S.A. the private company) which instals and
controls telephones. Institutions are not material things : they cannot be
seen or touched or pointed at, like material things.
This non-material character of institutions is illustrated by the sort
of explanations we have to offer when someone does not know what
it is we are referring to when we refer to some given institution,
and we explain it to him. Take the Oxford and Cambridge Boat
Race, for example. To explain what “a boat” is, one must explain that
it is a manufactured object which people can sit in and propel through
the water. To explain what “the Boat Race” is, as an institution, is
much more complicated. One must say: “Every year, at approximately
the same date, two sets of eight young men, one set from Oxford and
one from Cambridge, get into boats on the River Thames and propel
themselves from Putney to Mortlake; they start when someone gives
the signal, and the ones who arrive at Mortlake first are the winners.”
One can of course (in this instance) “see” the Boat Race— but not in
the same sense as one can “see” the boats. The Boat Race itself is “seen”
only in the sense that one sees particular crews engaging in activity
regulated in accordance with the institution. The Boat Race is like a
Platonic Idea manifesting itself in time — and so is language, the Post
Office, and any other institution. But yet institutions are not “eternal
objects” which manifest themselves in the material world, but social
products, instituted by men.
The universal distinguishing feature of institutions is, that they have
rules — conventional rules, definitive of each institution. People institute
institutions when, for carrying out their various activities, they come
to adopt certain rules of procedure — like the vocabulary and syntax of
a language, or the rules of the Boat Race, or the multifarious conven-
tions which govern the conduct of small shops or the Secret Police.
Such rules generally get established by custom, as the activity develops,
though they may also be, in certain cases, consciously formulated,
agreed and promulgated. Very often, to begin with, they “just grow”,
then at a certain stage of growth they are formulated and promulgated
THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL POWER
237
(language itself is a case in point). That is why our social activities may
be said to be “regulated” by our institutions.
In our social actions we use various material objects and material
products for our purposes, in a way regulated by our institutions.
Institutions with their rules of social behaviour are essential for social
activities and the realisation of their purposes, for without this kind of
regulation the activities could neither be conducted nor succeed.
Indeed, all social activities are, and must be, institutionalised. There is
not first an activity and then, later, an institution — but social activities
only develop by developing the appropriate institutional regulation.
Hence while one can, in words, distinguish a social activity and the
institution for performing it, each is an abstraction apart from the
other, and the concrete reality is the institutionalised activity.
Of course, separate individual activities are not always fully institu-
tionalised. For example, a man enjoying himself in a boat on the
Thames is not engaged in institutionalised activity like the crews in
the Boat Race; though even his activity is institutionalised to some
extent, since he probably has to hire the boat and return it within a
stated time, and the motions he performs are those which have been
instituted in the development of boating, and have to be learned by
him in the school of Thames boating — different in many respects from
that of, say, the Yangtse. It is social activity that is institutionalised ;
but so social is man that institutional rules are often obeyed in solitude,
as when an Englishman exploring the jungle dresses for dinner.
Clearly, it is important to distinguish between, on the one hand,
the rules enjoined by institutions and, on the other hand, the objective
laws characteristic of material processes and the objective requirements
for dealing with them. This is a distinction which, historically, people
have found it hard to draw. Thus, on the one hand, we imagine
ourselves to be bound by the rules of our institutions as by natural laws,
and on the other hand, we imagine natural laws to have been instituted
somehow or other (by God) for the regulation of natural processes.
There is, however, a pretty close connection between the rules of
institutions and objective laws. The institutional rules of an activity
have to accord with the laws which limit the activity, so that we
cannot simply make up and alter the rules in any way we like. The
purely conventional rules of a language, for example, have to accord
with the objective requirements of communication which govern
speaking. Again, such an institution as the Board of Trade, in Britain,
has to be conducted in accordance with the objective requirements of
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
238
the economy. We could neither institute rules for language just as we
please, nor ^regulate trade just as we please. Moreover, in so far as
activities deal with material objects, they have to be regulated in
accordance with the natural properties of the objects.
Institutions, then, are characterised by rules — rules which are
themselves limited by the laws of the activities they regulate. In the
second place, most institutions (but not all — languages, for example,
are exceptions) require the construction of some sort of permanent
material equipment for the purpose of carrying on the regulated
activity. Thus, for example, many institutions are housed in buildings;
others possess moveable equipment, such as the locomotives of British
Railways or the cloaks and daggers of the Secret Police.
This sometimes leads to verbal confusion in talking about institutions,
when the material equipment is identified with the institution itself.
Thus the words “The Board of Trade” may be used to denote the
building in which the Board of Trade operates, or “British Railways”
to denote the totality of railway lines and rolling stock. Again, the
so-called social engineer is often very much concerned with material
equipment — as when the educational reformer calls for the building
of new schools, and for their architectural design in accordance with
his recommendations about how the education inside them should be
conducted. Again, he may call for “the taking over” of material
equipment, as when he calls for his own nominees to be installed in
positions where they will manage its use in different ways from that
in which it was managed before.
This general definition of institutions makes clear, then, a point in
which Dr. Popper is interested, from the point of view of “social
engineering”, when he asks how institutions can change, or be changed.
In general, institutions are changed when the rules are changed —
including cases where new material equipment is introduced, neces-
sitating change of rules, and where change of rules necessitates pro-
vision of new equipment. It also makes clear that there are, as Dr.
Popper recognises but abstains from too much inquiry into, definite
limitations both to how existing institutions can be changed and to
what new or changed institutions can, in given circumstances, be
introduced.
In considering the development of institutions, as means and
regulators of human social activity, and what can and cannot be done
by way of purposively developing them in the future, it is evidently
of great importance to consider both the character and objective laws
THE INSTITUTION OP POLITICAL POWER
239
of interconnection and development of human social activities, and
the modes of interconnection and interdependence of institutions in
regulation of social activities. This is dialectics: fitting abstractions
together in the concrete picture of how a process actually proceeds.
It is in fact what Marx did, and Dr. Popper does not do — although
Dr. Popper says that Marx teaches us not “to think in terms of insti-
tutions” and that he himself is overthrowing Marx by performing an
“institutional analysis”. From a very exact analysis of the laws of
development of institutions Marx arrived at a practical political
programme for changing them. It is from trite and empty phrases
about “institutions” that Dr. Popper arrives at equally vapid general-
isations about “social engineering”.
Marx examined the connections and interdependence of institutions
as they are formed for socially necessary purposes of human activity.
He did not just talk about “institutions” in general, drawing no dis-
tinction between languages and small shops, or between boat races and
police forces. His analysis showed that the condition for all other
human activities is the performance of social production, so that the
techniques of production have to be instituted and, as an essential
requisite first for social labour and then for everything else people do
together, languages. To carry out production with the given tech-
niques, with the given forces of production, men have to enter into
corresponding relations of production — which therefore have also to
be instituted, so that an economic structure and property relations are
instituted. Then follows the institution of all the common activities of
everyday life, from the acquisition and exchange of products to sports
and the pursuit of arts and sciences. Lastly, to hold society together,
there must be institutions of education, propaganda and management
— schools, churches, legal institutions, government and political
institutions, equipped where necessary with means of material coercion.
2. INSTITUTIONS AND CLASSES
The all-important “social regularity” which Dr. Popper overlooks
when he lectures us about social engineering and institutions, and to
which opacities in his intellectual retina render him quite blind, is the
fundamental one which Marx discovered, namely, that to maintain and
continue our social existence we have to enter into relations of pro-
duction corresponding to our forces of production.
Unless we instituted arrangements to carry on social production
240
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
we could have no social life at all. In other words, the whole of social
life is lived on the basis of having entered into and instituted definite
relations of production. The production relations are the basis or
“foundation” of all the institutions for regulating how we use or enjoy
the various material means and mental abilities which we derive from
having engaged in social production. As Marx said (in the Preface to
the Critique of Political Economy ) : “The sum total of relations of pro-
duction constitutes the economic structure of society, the real founda-
tion on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which
correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of produc-
tion of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life
process in general.”
Relations of production include, as Marx went on to say, “property
relations”. To enter into relations of production is to enter into
regulative arrangements of production and distribution such that both
means of production and products are treated as the property of definite
persons or groups of persons. The institution of production relations
is thus the institution of property — and so Marx called the institution
of property “but a legal expression of the same thing”.
Incidentally, property and all other institutional arrangements
of society are dependent, not only on the development of techniques
of social production, but on language. People had to speak, because
social techniques of production involve this sort of communication.
The institution of language then supplies the necessary means of
communication for instituting everything else, including property.
Indeed, every human attribute is dependent on language — labour,
thought, property, religion, the sciences and arts, the whole develop-
ment of social life and of the individual personality which is the
product of social life.
As Dr. Popper has said, many institutions “just grow”. That is to
say, they are not begun, nor thereafter are they changed, as a result of
anyone thinking up the rules and inventing the equipment, and
everyone else then agreeing to do as he proposes. Rather do people
enter into certain arrangements, and modify them, from the necessities
of their social life, in accordance with what is possible and what is
necessary for them to do in view of their productive forces. Marx
devoted a great deal of attention to the question of how relations of
production, and property relations, “grow”. People have entered into
them, as he said, “independent of their will”. And so these institutions
have appeared to the people who have regulated their lives by them as
THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL POWER
241
either natural or God-given laws of life, since they themselves never
deliberately instituted them.
Property, Marx showed, is derivative from division of labour in
social production. With the very primitive techniques of small groups
engaged in hunting and food-gathering everyone had much the same
things to do, and such division of labour as there was came from the
natural differences of the two sexes. The development of production
techniques, such as began first of all with agriculture, the domestication
of animals, and the development of various crafts, brought increasing
division of labour ; and this division of labour led to means of pro-
duction and products becoming allocated as the property of this or
that person or group of persons. "The various stages of development
in the division of labour”, wrote Marx and Engels in The German
Ideology (I, 1), "are just so many different forms of ownership; i.e. the
existing stage in the division of labour determines also the relations of
individuals to one another with reference to the materials, instruments
and products of labour.”
Property relations have been, in their development, class relations.
The division of labour has given rise to property, and the development
of property to the division of society into classes. Classes are dis-
tinguished by "the place they occupy in social production and, con-
sequently, the relation in which they stand to the means of production”.
Lenin, to whom we owe this brief definition of class distinctions, also
elaborated the definition of "social class” at more length: "Classes are
large groups of people which differ from each other by the place they
occupy in an historically definite system of social production, by their
relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in laws) to the means of
production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and, con-
sequently, by the dimensions of the social wealth that they obtain and
their method of acquiring their share in it. Classes are groups of people
one of which may appropriate the labour of another, owing to the
different places they occupy in the definite system of social economy”
(A Great Beginning).
The development of property divides society into classes when some
acquire monopoly-ownership of means of production of such a kind
as enables them to exploit the labour of others in definite ways. In the
total social process of division of labour in production and distribution
each class fulfils its role, whether of labour or of management. But
the relations of classes do not constitute a harmonious system in which
the function of one requires and complements the function of another
242
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
(as in Plato’s ideal Republic, where “justice” consisted in each class
being content to perform its proper role, or in the fable of Menenius
Agrippa in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus). On the contrary, these relations
are antagonistic. Exploiters and exploited continually dispute their
share of the social wealth as well as the method of acquiring it, and so
do exploiters with rival methods of exploitation.
Classes are not institutions, but groups of people who have become
differentiated as a result of the institution of property and of class
relations. Thus the regulation and management of production in
accordance with the institutional development of property relations —
which have developed in a definite way because of the necessities
imposed upon the regulation of production by definite developments
of the forces of production — has divided society into social classes, with
some exploiting others. As a result of the division into classes, distinct
and antagonistic “class interests” have arisen. For institutions of
property, with resulting class divisions, which have brought material
benefits to one class have brought the opposite to another. Hence one
class has had an interest in carrying on institutions in one way, and
another class in carrying them on in another way, or in doing away
with them and substituting different institutions.
Institutions of all kinds are instituted, carried on and changed by
people — and so, in a society divided into classes, the instituting , carrying
on and change of the social institutions is done by people with divergent
antagonistic class interests. Some classes are interested in preserving the
existing class relations, and in setting up and managing other insti-
tutions (for example, for government, for enjoyment of leisure and,
in general, for all kinds of social purposes) on the basis of preserving
the property relations; whereas other classes have contrary in-
terests.
What happens to institutions, and what is done with their aid, is
decided, naturally enough, by the aggregate of interactions of all the
persons concerned. Hence naturally enough (indeed, inevitably) what
happens to institutions in class-divided society , and what is done with their
aid , is decided as the outcome of class struggles. And this is equally true
whether, in given circumstances, class struggles result in fundamental
changes in institutions, or whether their temporary issue proves to be
some sort of accommodation or compromise. The basic issue of class
struggle is always that of preserving or changing property relations.
The classes dispute their share of the social wealth and the method of
acquiring it. In this dispute they form specific class-institutions of their own t
THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL POWER
243
and likewise dispute over the management and character of all sorts of other
institutions .
Classes are formed by the divisions introduced by property relations.
They develop and consolidate their existence as classes by the develop-
ment of institutions to preserve and push forward their interests in
opposition to other classes, and of definite modes of consciousness or
“ideologies” in which their collective determination to do so, and
belief in the rightness of so doing, is expressed. Thus the modem
working class, for example, was formed as a result of the divisions
introduced by the relations of capital and wage-labour; it developed
and consolidated its existence as a class by setting up working-class
organisations and developing corresponding modes of consciousness.
These are the conclusions scientifically drawn by Marx. We can
now judge, therefore, whether it is true to say, as Dr. Popper has said,
that “Marxists have been taught to think in terms not of institutions
but of classes”. The implied disjunction is false. To think of social
activities, as one is bound to do, and as Marx did, “in terms of insti-
tutions”, is to think of them “in terms of classes”, since the people who
set up institutions, and keep them going, are divided into classes. To
think of any institutions connected with property and its administration
otherwise than “in terms of classes” is to think of them in abstraction
from the people who institute and use them, and from the actual social
circumstances in which they institute and use them. Dr. Popper may
favour that kind of metaphysical abstraction, and make out that when
people are divided into classes they can nevertheless regulate their
social activities through institutions as if they were not divided into
classes; but we who have paid some attention to what Marx had to
teach about dialectics are able to spot this false abstraction, and recognise
how the categories of “class” and “institution” are connected in the
actual concrete development of social activity.
Classes are, we may note, and as Marx demonstrated, derivative
from the development of relations of production, or the institution
of property. Having, as a result of the division of labour consequent
upon development of productive forces, instituted property relations
which divide society into classes, people have thereafter been engaged
in class struggles, and have changed their institutions only in the course
of and as the outcome of class struggles. To listen to Dr. Popper on
“the class struggle” one would be led to imagine, however, that for
Marx the class struggle was some sort of fundamental law of society —
so that one must “think in terms not of institutions but of classes”.
244
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
But on the contrary, classes and class struggles are merely derivative
from certain temporary historically-constituted types of social insti-
tutions. Let us find how to get rid of these types of institutions and
we shall have got rid of the class struggle. As a result of his paying no
attention to the scientific analysis of class struggles as actually derivative
from the institution of property, Dr. Popper’s own exposition is most
inconsistently and curiously divided between imagining that classes
have already disappeared, so that capitalist institutions can be managed
as though there were no class struggle at all, and imagining that class-
division is so necessary a feature of all human society that “a classless
society” is “a utopia”.
Revolutionary changes in institutions, that is to say, the ousting of
one form of exploitation by another or, in socialist revolution, of all
exploitation, are made necessary, as Marx showed, by the development
of productive forces. It is evident enough that, in Europe for example,
the sorts of improvements in agricultural techniques which took place
under feudalism not only were not but could not have been effected on
the slave estates of the ancient Roman Empire, and that the later
developments of industrial techniques which took place under capital-
ism could not have been effected so long as feudal relations hampered
them. To make these things possible great institutional changes had to
be effected. And these changes were effected as a result of long and,
indeed, bloody struggles, in which one interest in the acquiring of
wealth overcame another. Ruling classes succumbed, and institutions
became radically altered, only when the former had been sufficiently
weakened and divided as a result of their inability successfully to
manage the existing economy through the existing institutions.
Revolutions, necessary for the development of the social forces of
production, are brought about as a consequence of clashes between
people interested in different ways of acquiring their share of the social
wealth.
Today the necessity of socialist revolution is deduced from the fact that
the full development of modern forces of production , including the full employ-
ment of all human , technological and scientific resources , and the full enjoy-
ment of the possible benefits^ is not possible so long as capitalist property
relations prevail Once again the institutional changes that are necessary
cannot be engineered except through the sort of “ engineering ” effected by
class struggles. Dr. Popper (echoing the spurious wisdom of other
bourgeois sages of greater antiquity) maintains that “a revolution” is
a sort of unnecessary catastrophe, brought about as an interruption in
THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL POWER
245
orderly progress by some explosion of passions or conspiracy of
bloody-minded agitators, which could have been avoided had the
rulers been wiser. After the destructive anarchy of a revolution, order
has eventually to be restored again and affairs brought back to normal
— and such progress as may then be achieved could have been achieved
just as well, and probably much better, without a revolution. This is
to overlook the fact that the institutional changes effected by revolution
were necessary, and could only be effected by class struggle and the
decisive overcoming of one interest by another. Opposing “social
engineering ,, to revolution, Dr. Popper tells us that “only by planning,
step by step, for institutions to safeguard freedom, especially freedom
from exploitation, can we hope to achieve a better world” (2-OS. 143),
But to “safeguard freedom from exploitation” it would first be
necessary to have instituted freedom from exploitation, that is to say,
to have instituted socialist relations of production, that is to say, to
have “engineered” a socialist revolution.
3. CLASSES AND POLITICAL POWER
Human social activity is, one need hardly stress, a very complex thing,
and has got more complex as civilisation has developed. This complexity
is due not simply to the multiplication of activities but to the cor-
responding multiplication of institutions. For every social activity is
regulated in one way or another and so has its institutions. As activities
have multiplied, so there has developed activity the object of which is
to direct, organise and control activities, to administer and to manage,
and so also institutions of direction, organisation, control, adminis-
tration and management.
It is always as well to bear in mind, when talking about institutions,
that they are of many distinct types and that what may sensibly be
predicated of one type makes no sense if predicated of another.
Statements about “all institutions” or “institutions in general” are,
therefore, often merely nonsensical. When Dr. Popper lectures us
about “social engineering” he is evidently specially concerned with
institutions of management . The special character of such institutions is
expressed in the fact that certain persons are “in charge” of them,
“hold office” in them, and so on — statements which make no sense at
all applied to other types of institution. With these institutions there
enters into social life the element known as “authority” and “power”.
And with this we must be concerned if we are to talk practical sense
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
246
about “social engineering ,, to “plan step by step institutions to achieve
a better world”.
Authority or power has sometimes been understood by some rather
simple-minded sociologists (including Duhring, whom Engels criti-
cised, but not, of course, including Dr. Popper) as consisting simply in
the possession by some persons of material means for intimidating and
bossing others. Thus the man with the big stick is the man of power,
and the origin of power is explained in a very simple way by the theory
that one day long ago some people armed themselves with big sticks
while the others weren’t looking. Power, however, is developed in
society by the development of institutions of management, and is
exercised through those institutions and in accordance with their rules.
This fact is expressed in our language by the virtual equivalence of
“power” with “authority”. Even tyrants, against whom Dr. Popper
inveighs so much, are not able to seize power simply by beating other
people over the head, but only by achieving authority in social insti-
tutions and “planning and constructing” special institutions of their
own for the exercise of their power.
An important feature of the relation of institutions of management
and government to other institutions is that changes in the latter are
often effected through the agency and by the authority of the former.
Thus, for example, changes in instituted propery arrangements may be
made through the agency of legislation adopted and executed by
government institutions. On a lesser scale, changes in the rules of
cricket may be made through the agency of such a governing body as
the Marylebone Cricket Club. On the other hand, the power of such
agencies is not unlimited. They cannot effect any changes they like,
but only those which conditions permit and which they can get people
to accept. And at the same time, changes taking place in the sum of
social activities, and particularly the development of class struggles,
often demand and lead to considerable changes in the constitution and
operation of power.
The limitations of instituted power take the form that there are
not only some things those in power cannot do but other things they
are obliged to do. This applies to the power of tyrants and dictators
equally with that of democratically instituted authorities. And it
applies equally whether the powers concerned be the supreme powers
of government or the lesser powers exercised in, say, women’s institutes
or village cricket clubs. Every office is subject to obligations and
restrictions. In a cricket club, for example, the pitch must be kept in
THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL POWER
247
condition, the games organised, and funds raised. The club committee
is obliged to attend to such matters, since they are objective conditions
for playing cricket. Somewhat similar considerations apply to govern-
ments. And, in either case, if those in authority neglect obligations or
seek to exceed their mandate, their power is either lost at once or
begins to decrease. Thus Engels observed that, even in the case of
“despotic” governments, “the exercise of a social function was every-
where the basis of political supremacy . . . political supremacy has
existed for any length of time only when it fulfilled its social functions.
However great the number of despotic governments which rose and
fell in India and Persia, each was fully aware that its first duty was the
general maintenance of irrigation throughout the valleys, without
which no agriculture was possible” (. Anti-Duhring , Part II, Chapter
4).
According to the scientific way Marx thought about institutions,
a government or a state is a highly specialised type of institution
(or rather a complex of specialised institutions), evolved subject to
the requirements set by the mode of production. The specialised
function of governing, performed through governments or state
institutions, is, clearly, a case of division of labour, a product of the
social development of division of labour. In primitive conditions,
where the institution of tribal meetings and the leading role of head-
men and suchlike suffices for directing and organising the simple com-
munal life, specialised institutions of government are unknown. It is
where division of labour has led not merely to a multiplicity of
specialised individual activities which need co-ordination but to the
institution of private property in means of production, and conse-
quently to class divisions and antagonism of class interests, that the
specialised kind of overall social management which is done by
government institutions becomes necessary. At that stage these
institutions are established, with certain individuals becoming govern-
ors, office-holders and rulers. The multiplication of diverse and inter-
dependent social activities and functions, each regulated and directed
by its appropriate institutions, makes necessary the institution of a
supreme power which will make as secure as possible the general
conditions within which they can all develop; and at the same time
the antagonisms entailed by property relations and class divisions make
necessary the institution of a power strong enough to hold conflicts in
check and prevent them from disrupting the social order.
It is obvious that when the instituted relations of production are such
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
248
that a comparatively few men of property are able to exploit the
toiling majority, such a social order could not (human nature being
what it is, as Thucydides used to say) last very long unless the state
institutions served to uphold the property relations and hold back
or punish any who might combine to resist exploitation. Whenever
and wherever a social order has been -instituted based on the exploitation
of man by man , it has included state institutions which serve to maintain
that exploitation and , therefore y the interests of the principal exploiting class.
It has endured only so long as such institutions endured, and has
fallen only when its state institutions have succumbed either to internal
revolution or external attack or a combination of both.
Such, in its most general terms, is the Marxist theory of the origin
of the state. Dr. Popper protests, with his customary vigour, that one
cannot deduce conclusions about what can or cannot be done with
something now from a theory of origins. States may have originated
to uphold exploitation; but that does not necessarily imply that the
social engineer today , who wishes to “plan institutions to safeguard
freedom from exploitation”, must lead a revolutionary attack on the
existing institutions of government — for whatever the origin of these
institutions in ancient society, they may have changed fundamentally
in the interim period. That is, of course, quite true. Nor are Marxists
quite so stupid as to deduce conclusions about “the essence” of govern-
ment institutions housed today on the banks of the Thames from
hypotheses about the origins of those set up thousands of years ago
on the Tigris and Euphrates.
The point of inquiring into origins is that such inquiries throw light on
functions. To propound a theory about how government activity and
its state institutions originated out of the multiplication and diversifi-
cation of human activities and relations consequent upon the develop-
ment of social production (which is what Marx did) is to demonstrate
the social functions which state power has fulfilled and to which its institutions
have been adapted. So far as the present day is concerned, the question
to settle is the factual question of whether or not state power is still
required to fulfil, and still fulfils, analogous functions. Since capitalism
continues to be based on the exploitation of man by man, and class
struggle of exploited with exploiters continues, Marx concluded (and
his conclusion continues to be verified) that in capitalist society
state power continues to exercise the function of preserving the social order
with its relations of exploitation. He therefore concluded that those who
wish to get rid of exploitation, and to “plan institutions to safeguard
THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL POWER
249
freedom from exploitation”, should carefully examine the existing
state institutions in order to ascertain just how they function to preserve
exploitation. Having ascertained that, they can work out what to do
in order to stop this function from being exercised.
As for Dr. Popper’s “social engineers”, if they really want to
“plan a better world” they ought at least to make some inquiry into
what can be done about those institutions which confer powers to
preserve a worse world. But that inquiry would upset Dr. Popper’s
utopian hopes of “agreement”, for the powers in question are not
likely to agree to abdicate without a struggle. He prefers to stick to his
airy-fairy generalisations about “institutions in general”.
According to Dr. Popper, the great superiority of a democratic
system of government over a tyranny or dictatorship lies in the
elaboration of institutional mechanisms for controlling office-holders
and getting rid of them if they fail to give satisfaction. A bad tyrant
like a bad prime minister can be ejected — but only by violence,
whereas there are institutional provisions for changing the prime
minister by constitutional means without violence. We may whole-
heartedly agree that democratic government does possess this ad-
vantage, and that accordingly the evolution of democratic institutions
is progress in the arts of civilised living. All the same, we should qualify
our assent to Dr. Popper’s jubilation over the perfection of our
government institutions by asking what particular class interests
these institutions have been evolved to promote, and what safeguards
they include for the promotion of class interests. If “to achieve a
better world” requires other interests to be promoted in opposition
to those chiefly promoted by the existing institutions of government,
our concern must be not so much to preserve our institutions as to
change them — to remove safeguards for one set of interests and institute
safeguards for another, to remove provisions to ensure that one set of
interests are always satisfied and institute provisions to satisfy another.
Precisely that is the political programme of the Communist Party.
One complaint of Dr. Popper against the Communist Party is that
Marx has taught it to “think in terms not of institutions but of classes”.
But the great contribution of Marx to scientific thinking about
institutions lay in his demonstration of the ways in which classes
secure and promote their interests through the agency of institutions , and
particularly of government institutions.
It is a commonly held view, amongst those who do not go so far
as to deny that class interests have an important influence in govern-
250
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
ment (and, to do him justice, Dr. Popper should perhaps be included
amongst them), that the function of government is to hold a kind of
balance between class interests — to ensure that each interest is satisfied
so far as is possible without injuring others. This view appears to receive
confirmation in the custom of contemporary governments in the case,
for example, of industrial disputes, when they generally invite each
side to the Ministry of Labour in an effort to achieve a compromise.
A less pleasing version of this theory of government is the view that
governments retain power by playing off one interest against another
(according to Charles II this was the secret of royal power in his own
merry reign). The essential tenet of all such theories is that the govern-
ment is not itself the instrument of any sectional interest (or if it is,
it is a “bad” government), but that its function is to maintain law and
order in the general interest of everyone — of “the people”, “the com-
munity” or “the nation”. Dr. Popper’s view is evidently that, although
in the bad old days governments were often far from disinterested,
democracy as instituted in Great Britam and the United States of
America has today actually achieved, or very nearly achieved, this
object.
The falsification of such theories in the case of every social order
based on the exploitation of man by man, which includes contemporary
capitalism, is ensured by the fact that, to preserve the basic property
relations and to direct affairs within the framework they provide , the govern-
ment has always got to uphold the essential interest of the exploiting against
the exploited classes. This function of contemporary capitalist govern-
ments is, indeed, demonstrated clearly enough in the case of industrial
disputes, cited above. If the workers won’t accept a compromise
acceptable to the employers, the government always proceeds to
assist the employers in coercing them to accept it. Otherwise, as the
spokesmen of the government always tell us, the very fabric of society,
and the essential welfare of the community as a whole, would suffer.
This function of governments is ensured by the fact that powerful
well-established institutions exist to ensure that governments do
function in that way.
In general, authority, with the exercise of power, is instituted to
serve a social function, to direct, organise and control certain social
activities for certain purposes. Office-holders and persons of authority
possess power on the condition that they fulfil their social function.
The pt>wer they exert is the power socially instituted for preserving
certain social relations and organising social activity within them,
THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL POWER 25 1
in which not only the office-holders but numerous other people, over
whom the office-holders exert authority, have a direct interest.
Even a tyrant must, if his power is to survive, take care of the
obligations which his office entails to definite social interests. The
successful tyrant is always, in certain matters of key social importance,
a very conscientious person: he looks after irrigation works, for
example, or he promotes trade and industry. Unconscientious tyrants
(like several Roman emperors) have usually come to a sticky end.
Today, in democratic capitalist countries, there have been evolved
elaborate systems of institutional checks and counterchecks which
ensure not only that office-holders carry out their functions to the
satisfaction of capitalist interests, but that only persons of requisite
social outlook and allegiance shall be selected for office, while the un-
reliable are weeded out. In the democratic government of Britain,
for example, this is provided for not (as is often suggested) simply
by periodic elections, but by the party system, and the elaborate
processes of behind-the-scenes jockeying by which civil servants
influence ministers and industrial and financial interests influence civil
servants and party executives.
Of great importance, therefore, are the institutional mechanisms
whereby, in die case of any exercise of power (whether it be that of a
club committee, an oriental despotism, or a democratic government),
the persons of authority are selected, kept in line, restricted in their
exercise of power, and made to fulfil their functions and carry out
their obligations to those whose interest is served by their activity.
Class interests are asserted through institutions. This does not mean
that all institutions promote exclusively class interests, for obviously
they do not: it means that wherever there is a class interest there are
institutions to promote it . It is quite true that the numerous individuals
who compose a class do not one and all devote themselves to furthering
the common class interest, since many individual causes lead individuals
to pursue aims irrelevant to or conflicting with their class interests. But
in the aggregate of social activities class interests get affirmed. The existence
of a common class interest leads to institutions being formed to
promote it, and these exert much greater power than belongs to
institutions which serve only the eccentric aims of other groups of
individuals. Thus in Britain today the Conservative Party is a far
more powerful institution than, say, the Anti-vaccination League or the
Lord’s Day Observance Society, and the Federation of British Industries
than, say, the Canine Defence League.
252
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
I have already observed that classes are developed and consolidated
by the development of institutions to preserve and push forward their
interests, in opposition to other classes. A class may be said to be
powerful to the extent to which there has been established a system of
institutions through which its interests are effectively promoted. When
these include key institutions of government, the class concerned may
be accurately described as “the ruling class”. Under such circumstances,
state or political power effectively belongs to that class — as it effectively
belongs to the capitalist class in capitalist countries today, democratic
as some of them may be.
“Classes never rule,” says Dr. Popper. “The rulers are always
certain persons” (CR. 345). It would be difficult to imagine a more
flagrant example of Dr. Popper’s illogical habit of posing false
antitheses. Of course “rulers are always persons”. If I am asked, for
example, who is the prime minister of Britain today (1967), I answer:
Mr. Harold Wilson. Because as a Marxist I am of opinion that the
capitalist class is the ruling class, I would not suggest that the capitalist
class is the prime minister, but only that the prime minister is under
the thumb of the capitalist class. Clearly, the sense in which a class
rules is different from that in which an individual rules by virtue of
his holding high office. The prime minister in Britain holds the highest
office. But the government institutions of Britain are so contrived
(not as a result of anyone’s plot but of a long process of historical
growth and class struggle) that there are hundreds of institutional
links whereby the capitalist class is able to prevent the appointment
to high office of persons unreliable from the point of view of its
class interest, and to ensure that those who wield power shall exert
it in one way and not in another. That is how the capitalist class
rules. If and when this complex institutional mechanism is broken,
the capitalist class will no longer be the ruling class. Mr. Wilson,
although he sometimes calls himself a socialist, does not even want to
break it — nor could he, just on his own. For that there is required the
concerted efforts of a great many people, united in institutions which
promote other class interests.
Instituted poiver is always tied up with the preservation and promotion
of definite interests . This is as true of many lesser institutions (societies,
clubs and such-like) as it is of state power and governments. Those
who want to make a change are always up against a dead weight of
traditional resistance. They often put this down to the obstinacy and
thick-headedness of individuals — but it is more than that, it is the
THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL POWER
253
resistance of institutions geared to one interest to the promotion of
another. In face of this, individuals, even those in office, may well
feel helpless: “I would so much like to do something else, but Tm
not allowed to.” To make a change another interest has got to organise
effectively enough to break the links of power with the former interest .
Marx’s class approach, teaching us to think of government institu-
tions concretely in terms of classes, and not to think of them in the
abstract, abstracted from the' promotion of aggregate class interest,
teaches us that the capitalist order of society survives, and can only
survive, thanks to the established institutional arrangements whereby
the capitalist interest is served and preserved through the power of
the state. To break the fetters which capitalist relationships impose
on social production for social welfare it is necessary to develop
working-class organisation in resistance to the instituted power, to
the point where power passes into the hands of the working class.
This means that not only must persons be put into power who are
persons of socialist allegiance and with the will to execute a socialist
programme, but that the institutions of power must themselves be
altered and replaced, to the extent that the entire machinery of govern-
ment is geared to instituting socialist relations instead of preserving
capitalist ones, and its former links with capitalist class organisations
are broken and different links consolidated.
4. THE EXECUTIVE POWER OF THE STATE
In his book The Origin of the Fatnily 9 Private Property and the State
(Chapter 9), Engels described a “state” as a “power, arisen out of
society, but placing itself above it”. Its first “distinguishing charac-
teristic”, he continued, is that “the state is distinguished by the group-
ing of its members on a territorial basis”; a state holds sway over a
definite territory. Its second characteristic is “the institution of a
public force” which “consists not merely of armed men, but also of
material appendages, prisons and coercive institutions of all kinds”.
Within the territory of the state, therefore, the officers of the state,
who are “in possession of the public power”, act as “officials of society
standing above society”.
Marxism recognises very clearly, therefore, that a state, as an
instituted system of management and government, has to include not
only an organisation of administration but an organisation of coercion.
Of course, with the growing complexity of social activity and social
254
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
relations, modern states have come to provide a number of social
services, to undertake a number of specifically economic functions,
and to employ a very large number of officials for these purposes only.
However, what remains essential for the existence of the state and of
its power is the same as what has always been essential for any state —
“the institution of a public force”, a coercive apparatus, with its
command and administration. As Engels said in the chapter quoted,
this public force first became necessary, and has been necessary ever
since, on account of the appearance of class antagonisms within
society. “In order that these antagonisms, classes with conflicting
economic interests, shall not consume themselves and society in
fruitless struggle, a power, apparently standing above society, has
become necessary to moderate the conflict and keep it within the
boimds of ‘order’.” There must be corps of armed men, prisons,
effective material means to intimidate, coerce and punish, and a group
of persons in command of these, so as to preserve the social order from
any individuals or body of individuals whose activities threaten to
disrupt it.
In a number of studies of what were then contemporary or fairly
recent events, Marx showed how in the course of the bourgeois
revolution (by which is meant that series of events in which capitalist
relations of production and democratic rights were instituted) the
administrative, judicial and coercive apparatus of the state was
immensely strengthened. The building of such a strong centralised
apparatus was already beginning under the Absolute Monarchy.
Today it is obvious that, compared with anything at the disposal of
ancient despotisms or feudal states, the modem civil service, judiciary,
army and police is an immensely powerful force. This tightly-knit,
centralised, well armed and seemingly permanent force has become
attached to the service of capital by thousands of ties of sentiment
and interest; and it has acquired a permanence, stability and continuity
independent of the comings and goings of ministries and governments.
Marx was, of course, not the only observer to have noted this
phenomenon. Balzac, that close student of the bourgeois revolution
to whose acumen Marx owed a good deal, observed it before him.
At the end of his novel Les Petits Bourgeois the hero joins the Secret
Police (but do not ask for it at the library in the expectation of reading
the adventures of a prototype James Bond) ; and the Chief of Police
then congratulates him as a new recruit to that force “whose influence
the last half-century has daily increased ... to whom all governments,
THE INSTITUTION OP POLITICAL POWER
255
as they fall one on top of the other like houses of cards, come to
ask for safety and for the power to rebuild their future . . . Govern-
ments pass, societies perish or dwindle, but we — we dominate all
things; the police is eternal.”
I dare say those responsible for “security” in the British State today
are not personally gifted with such powers of clear expression; but
they could well talk in exactly the same way as they watch the rise
and fall of successive Conservative and Labour governments.
In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Chapter 7) Marx
remarked on the growth of an “executive power with its enormous
bureaucratic and military organisation” which, at every stage in its
efforts to establish or preserve security for capital investment, the
bourgeoisie has “found itself compelled to strengthen”. In times of
weakness or danger this organisation is there to take command,
independent of any democratic forms, for the purpose of preserving
law and order. And ministers holding temporary elected office, while
nominally the masters of the whole organisation, have left it intact
to work on, administering and protecting the social system based on
exploitation of labour; or, if they interfered too much, they have been
thrown out of office. The machine works on while its masters come
and go. And to change over to a Biblical metaphor, if they don’t
suit it, it spews them forth.
Marx pointed out, and what he then observed has continued to
happen, that throughout a series of economic developments and of
changes in the institutions of political power, the increasing activity
and organisation of the working people, though playing a great part
in all the events, did not prevent the growth of the “enormous
bureaucratic and military organisation” which sustains capitalism.
Indeed, protests and demands made it strengthen itself in order to
cope with them ; and of late years, as labour organisations have been
consolidated, it has been further strengthened and perfected by
including machinery for labour consultation and conciliation. Marx
concluded: “All revolutions perfected this machine instead of smashing
it.” But if the exploitation of labour is ever to be ended, then instead
of allowing this organisation of executive power to be strengthened
and perfected the working class must use the power of its own organisation to
smash it up , and institute a differently constituted and oriented executive power.
In a modem capitalist society there is an immense complex of
interlocked institutions through which affairs are conducted and
managed. To mention only the most indispensable ones, there are the
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
256
institutions of industry, of finance, of education and other social
services, all of them with their own commands, and with control
working on them both from “above” and from “below”. There are
elected assemblies, councils and committees, and manifold arrange-
ments for consultation. And the preservation and working of this
entire institutional complex depends on the activity and vigilance of
the central state institutions of administration and compulsion. Here
is the apex of the power structure. Controls of power work from lower
bodies to higher, and from higher to lower. From this centralised top
organisation control is exerted from above over all the rest of the
structure. The power so instituted is used both to direct and to protect
the whole.
How is this top organisation of power itself controlled? The whole
institutional structure has developed on the basis of the development
of capitalist relations of production, and in this development there
are instituted close ties between the “bureaucratic and military
organisation” of the state and the top ranks of industry and finance
in control of “economic power”. As capital has become concentrated
in fewer and bigger organisations, so has this tie-up become more firm.
In such a country as Britain, for example, the commands of the
civil service and the armed forces, together with the police and
judiciary, have grown up over long years as protectors and executive
officers of capital. It is not the case, of course, that certain tycoons in
die City of London give the orders and these commands simply obey
them. It is not as simple as that. And often it is the other way round.
The system represents in fact a system of checks and balances, where
those who occupy the corridors of power in Whitehall and those in
the City both consult each other and manoeuvre against each other as
individuals. But the institutional tie-up is complete, and is far stronger
than any agreement or disagreement between individuals who hold
office either in the state machine or in the organisation of big business.
It is an immensely strong impersonal force working for the preserva-
tion and profit of monopoly capital, which thus appears as an
impersonal power far greater than any individual tycoon or govern-
ment official.
To break this tie-up, to take the bureaucratic and military organisa-
tion into democratic control, under the leadership of labour organisa-
tions, and use it to administer the change-over from capitalist to socialist
relations of production, would amount to “smashing” the existing
organisation. Dr. Popper and others, including the leaders of the present
THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL POWER
257
(1967) Labour Government in Britain, say the organisation is efficient,
so the sensible course is to work democratically to make it more efficient
in the service of the common welfare — not to “smash” it. But a
bureaucratic and military organisation, though often called “a
machine” (and Marx himself used this word for it), is not something
which, like a conventional machine, is built as a complex of parts
subject to a motivation and control applied externally, so that anyone
who can get his hands on to the controls can set it working on any job
he chooses. The organisation has grown and been perfected as an
organisation of capitalism, and of the capitalist tie-up of economic and
political power.
A lot is said nowadays about the struggle for power within democra-
tic institutions of government. This is not a struggle to make any great
change in the power-institutions and the ways they are controlled and
work, but a struggle of individuals, political factions and political
parties for particular coveted offices within them. Its premise is accep-
tance of power-institutions more or less as they are, and its aim to get
oneself and one’s friends into office and not be left in the cold outside.
Those who engage in this sort of politics must watch their step, or
instead of being able to use the power they have won to operate the
policy of their choice they find that the machine which they have sought
to control operates against them and throws them out. This point was
well illustrated in C. P. Snow’s recent novel The Corridors of Power ,
where a minister, moved by his concern over the nuclear arms race to
make proposals which business organisations, influential men of both
parties and the top ranks of the civil service felt to be going too far, is
forced to resign and is relegated to the position of an ineffectual back-
bencher. (I say nothing of this novelist’s literary merits, though to
mirror so clearly how affairs are conducted is perhaps itself an item of
literary merit.)
It should be added that as democratic institutions have developed,
making ministers responsible to the electors (a development which has
proceeded apace since Marx wrote), so have the means of propaganda,
“mass media” and highly-organised party machines been perfected —
financed by big business and controlled by it. Hence tins powerful
apparatus is there to serve big business, to influence the electors, to
manipulate votes and stampede public opinion as required.
6
THE BATTLE OF DEMOCRACY
I. DEFINITION OF DEMOCRACY
The central political issue posed in capitalist society is to deprive the capitalist
class of state power and vest it in the working class , so that this power can be
employed to get rid of capitalism and construct a socialist society . This was
the conclusion Karl Marx drew from his analysis of institutions, and
particularly institutions of management and government, in terms of
classes and class struggles. Dr. Popper, on the other hand, is of
opinion that the central political issue is that of extending and streng-
thening democracy. The issue is not between one set of rulers and
another, but between democracy and dictatorship. In posing the issue
in this way Dr. Popper denies that democracy is (as Marx maintained)
an institutional form within which class-power is exerted, and maintains
that it is, on the contrary, something which renders any issues of class-
power irrelevant and obsolete.
Dr. Popper traces back to Plato what he takes to be Marx’s confused
and antidemocratic way of thinking about political power. “It is my
conviction,” he says, “that by expressing the problem of politics in the
form ‘Who should rule?’ . . . Plato created a lasting confusion in
political philosophy” (i-OS. 120). The political issue then seems to be
one of what persons or what groups or what classes should seize and
hold on to power. But experience shows that whoever gets power is
always under a strong temptation to misuse it. Of greater political
importance, therefore, than the question of who holds power is the
question of how to control their use of it. The key political question is
not that of who should be entrusted with power, but rather the question
(since none are really trustworthy with all power in their hands) of how
to organise, through political institutions, the most effective checks on
power. Democracy is the answer to this question.
In The Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels said that to “raise the
proletariat to the position of ruling class” was to “win the battle of
democracy”. They said this, Dr. Popper suggests, because they
thought that “democracy” means “the rule of the people” or “the rule
of the majority” — and the proletariat is the majority. But on the con-
trary, he tells us, democracy does not consist in “the rule” of anyone in
THE BATTLE OF DEMOCRACY
259
particular, but in “institutional control’ * of those who hold office by
those who do not hold office. Thus the Marxist “theory that the only
alternative to the dictatorship of one class is that of another class”
(i-OS. 122) is refuted by pointing out that the alternative to any dictator-
ship, whether of a class or of an individual, is the democratic organisa-
tion of effective “institutional control of the rulers”. But as for “the
dictatorship of one class”, Dr. Popper has already contended that it is in
any case an absurd idea, since “classes never rule. The rulers are always
persons.” The so-called “dictatorship of the proletariat” is in reality
nothing but the tyranny of a small clique masquerading as “the rule of
the people”.
The greatest advantage of democracy, Dr. Popper explains, is that it
enables checks to be exerted upon the actions of the rulers or office-
holders, whoever they are ; and for the rulers to be changed, if necessary,
without violence. If there are no democratic institutions, or if these
institutions are undeveloped or weak, the only way of checking the
rulers, or of changing them, is to oppose some form of violence to
the violence of the rulers. It is, of course, historically from opposition
to the actions of tyrannical rulers that democratic institutions have been
established. And Dr. Popper is accordingly able to state a definition of
“democracy” in these terms: “By a democracy I do not mean some-
thing as vague as ‘the rule of the people’ or ‘the rule of the majority’,
but a set of institutions (among them especially general elections, i.e.
the right of the people to dismiss their government) which permit
public control of the rulers and their dismissal by the ruled, and which
make it possible for the ruled to obtain reforms without using violence,
even against the will of the rulers” (2-OS. 151).
With this definition go two conclusions, with the first of which we
are already familiar.
The first conclusion is that “we may distinguish two main types of
government”, namely, democracies and dictatorships or tyrannies.
“The first type consists of governments of which we can get rid without
bloodshed — for example, by way of general elections. . . . The second
type consists of governments which the ruled cannot get rid of except
by way of a successful revolution” (i-OS. 124).
The other is that “the principle of a democratic policy” is “to
create, develop and protect political institutions for the avoidance of
tyranny. This principle does not imply that we can ever develop insti-
tutions of this kind which are faultless or foolproof, or which ensure that
the policies adopted by a democratic government will be right or good
2<5o
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
or wise — or even necessarily better or wiser than the policies adopted
by a benevolent tyrant. . . . What may be said, however, to be implied
in the adoption of the democratic principle is the conviction that the
acceptance of even a bad policy in a democracy (as long as we can work
for a peaceful change) is preferable to the submission to a tyranny,
however wise and benevolent” (i-OS. 125).
Asa Marxist, I cannot but agree with Dr. Popper that “by a democ-
racy I do not mean something as vague as ‘the rule of the people' or
‘the rule of the majority' ''. Marx and Engels may perhaps be reproached
because they often used the word “democracy' 'without defining it.
But at all events it was not Marx but Abraham Lincoln who defined
democracy as “rule of the people for the people by the people'*. And
it was not any Marxist but the late John Strachey, after he had stopped
being a Marxist, who defined it as the wide dissemination of power
amongst the members of the community. This is the type of definition
of “democracy'* which, as H. G. Wells relates, so much puzzled the
immensely intelligent supreme ruler of the moon when the first man on
the moon “gave him an outline of the democratic method”, explaining
that on the earth “ all rule”. On hearing this, the Grand Lunar is reported
to have “ordered cooling sprays upon his brow”. Democracy cer-
tainly cannot be defined as a political system in which everyone, or
even the majority, takes his share of “ruling”. Nor can it be defined in
terms of what particular persons or classes hold power. That much is
very clearly implied in Marx's insistence that there can be both capital-
ist and socialist democracies, or in other words, that the capitalist
class, a small exploiting minority, can and often does exercise effective
power in governing the Eves of the majority through the operation of
democratic institutions of government. To define “democracy” as
“the rule of the people” would imply one or other of two conclusions,
both of which Marxists would dispute: either there is no democracy
in capitalist countries, or else political power in those countries does
not effectively belong to the capitalist class.
Whatever Dr. Popper may say we mean, Marxists cannot define
“democracy” in terms of “who rules” or “who has the power”. On the
contrary, we may agree with Dr. Popper in understanding it as a
characteristic or form of power-institutions, or of institutions of
management, defined in terms of the institutional control over office-
holders or governors, including their dismissal and replacement, which
is exerted by those whom they govern.
For us, therefore, as for Dr. Popper, the practical test of whether
THE BATTLE OF DEMOCRACY
261
an institution through which affairs are managed and people are
governed is democratic, or of how far it is democratic, lies in deter-
mining whether, or how far, it includes institutional provisions by
which those who do not hold office can question , check and control the
policies of office-holders , and confirm them in , or dismiss them from
office . This test suffices for us to criticise imdemocratic procedures, and
to propose or support democratic ones, whether in the management of
a cricket club, a trade union or the national economy. We are in
favour of democracy. And we are in favour of it for very much the
same reasons as Dr. Popper declares himself in favour of it: it is a
bulwark against tyranny, a means of getting rid of bad rulers, a means of
getting policies discussed and criticised, and a means of securing reforms
without violence.
But Dr. Popper, apparently without noticing it, or at any rate
without being too scrupulous about it, jumps from defining democ-
racy as that characteristic of institutions of management whereby
office-holders are made answerable to other people, to defining “a
democracy” as a complete political system, or as “a set of institutions”
which, all together, “permit public control of the rulers . . . and make
it possible to obtain reforms without violence”. Yet it is a far cry from
establishing particular democratic institutions and enjoying through
them certain democratic rights, to establishing a complete “set of
institutions” to do all the work of government, and which is a democ-
racy and nothing but a democracy. It cannot be too much emphasised
that democracy is a characteristic of institutions of management , or a form
of such institutions , and not itself either an institution or a set of institu-
tions. While there are many democratic institutions through which
government is carried on, there is nowhere any complete set of insti-
tutions of government in which democratic methods are not countered
by, and often at war with, undemocratic methods. There is no such
thing as “a democracy” pure and simple, but only various kinds of
democratic institutions. All of these are historically formed out of the
exigencies of particular circumstances, in particular conditions of class
relations and class struggles.
When Dr. Popper divides all governments into democracies and
tyrannies he is adopting a principle of classification which will not fit
the facts, as is obvious if one considers cases. Were the Tudor govern-
ments in England tyrannies or democracies, for example? One can
hardly call them either without qualification, though to call them
“democracies” would perhaps require more qualification than to call
262
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
them “tyrannies”. This proposed classification of all governments is
far from accurate. And its chief failing becomes evident when one con-
siders how particular governments have actually been constituted and
what they have done. Thus, for example, the ancient tyranny of
Peisistratos in Athens was in its social basis and functions very different
from the modem tyranny exercised by Hitler in Germany, inasmuch
as what Peisistratos did was to break the pow T er of the former ruling
class, whereas what Hitler did was to ensure that the ruling class could
rule without restraint. Again, the admittedly high-handed and often
violent policies of the Tudor monarchs effectively checked the former
rampages of feudal lords and so provided conditions for the subsequent
growth of industry and commerce, whereas the conquests of tyrants of
the type of Ghenghiz Khan in Asia plundered and broke up the civilisa-
tions on which they imposed themselves. Evidently there are important
distinctions even between tyrannies. As for democracies, the democ-
racy of ancient Greece (the road to which in Athens w T as in fact pre-
pared by the former tyranny) provided methods of institutional con-
trol for carrying on the exploitation of peasant proprietors and slaves,
whereas the democracy we at present enjoy in Britain or the U.S.A.
provides institutional methods for carrying on capitalist exploitation.
There is, of course, a clear distinction between democratic and
tyrannical methods in government, inasmuch as one can distinguish
democratic and tyrannical elements in particular governments and, in
some cases, describe governments as wholly tyrannical. But that does
not mean that simply by distinguishing tyrannical and democratic
methods all governments may be neatly divided into democracies and
tyrannies, and still less that the distinction suffices to sum up the part
which any particular government has played in the progress or other-
wise of society, including in the political advance to “democracy and
freedom”.
Of primary importance in the assessment of governments is the
distinction which Marx has the merit of stressing (he was not himself
the first to recognise it) — the distinction between governments in
terms of the class relations they foster and the classes whose interests
they promote. When Dr. Popper says that “we need only distinguish
between two forms of government . . . i.e. democracies and tyrannies”
(2-OS. 161) he ignores the fact that there are also to be distinguished
(amongst others) slave-owners’ governments, feudal governments,
capitalist governments and socialist governments. If governments
are considered in these terms, it is possible not only to distinguish but
THE BATTLE OF DEMOCRACY
263
also to explain the varying democratic and undemocratic elements in
their modes of operation, whereas if they are all lumped into the two
exclusive categories of “democracy” and tyranny” not only are these
important differences between governments obscured but a great
many governments refuse to fit into either category. Dr. Popper rather
pointedly suggests that Marx’s ideas about government were highly
doctrinaire. But if by “doctrinaire” one means introducing hard-and-
fast distinctions which do not fit the facts and cover up important
features of the facts, it is Dr. Popper himself who is doctrinaire in his
ideas about government.
Thus Dr. Popper says roundly that in “a democracy”, as distinct from
a tyranny, there is “public control of the rulers”. But how far and in
what sense is this true in such a democracy as Britain or the U.S.A., for
example? Such institutions as general elections establish public control
inasmuch as rulers (meaning office-holders) have periodically to submit
themselves to election. But “the public” are a very heterogeneous
bunch in our class-divided society, including not only wage and salary
workers and professional people, but bankers, industrialists and finan-
ciers. The institutions which in their totality permit a certain amount
of generalised “public control of the rulers”, permit a more continuous
and stringent control over them by that section of “the ruled” who
constitute the capitalist class — who for this very reason are described by
Marxists as “the ruling class”, even though they do not count for much
in terms of their votes. And furthermore, while the rest of “the public”
are deciding how to vote, their sources of information, and the propa-
ganda agencies which influence their ideas, are very little controlled by
them. Democracy includes powerful institutions for controlling the majority of
the nominal controllers , as well as for ensuring continuously effective control by
a minority . So long as the -capitalist class within a democracy can hold onto
these types of control it remains effectively the ruling class .
Further, these characteristics of the actual methods of control in
practice qualify that other property which Dr. Popper praises in demo-
cratic institutions — that they “make it possible” to secure “reforms
without violence”.
True, in Britain the institutional rules of the democratic electoral
system “permit the ruled” to vote into office a parliamentary majority
to introduce any reforms they wish. But it does not follow from this that
the British political system does not include institutions which might
well not permit certain reforms to be operated. Thus while the finan-
cial institutions, under present control, can do a great deal to sabotage
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
264
many intended economic reforms, the judiciary, the civil service, the
police and the armed forces are so controlled, despite their obligations
to parliament, that at a pinch they could act not only to sabotage re-
form but even to nullify it by violence. Thus independent action by the
military has often been known in very recent times in democracies —
for example, the action of the military in Ulster to prevent the opera-
tion of the then British Government’s Irish policy, to say nothing of
more recent examples in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and in Europe
too. Are we quite sure that the present system of command in Britain
and the United States could permit no similar actions in any cir-
cumstances?
Indeed, the management institutions of Britain and the United States
in their totality are so constituted that even far less radical reforms
than, say, socialising capitalist property have not been permitted with-
out violence. The violent scenes often enacted when any considerable
number of “the ruled” have attempted to exercise their democratic
right to demand such reforms as the abandonment of nuclear weapons,
or the ending of racial discrimination, or (in time of unemployment)
work or full maintenance for the unemployed, bear witness to this. So
how democratic is democracy? What some institutions permit and
make possible, other institutions do not permit or make, if not im-
possible, at least difficult and dangerous.
Perhaps it is because he is so well aware of these features of our
democratic system that Dr. Popper so earnestly advocates that no
reforms should ever be attempted except very little ones. One must
be as careful not to go too far in a democracy as under a tyranny, lest
the powers that be are provoked to violence.
Dr. Popper r who accuses Marxists of such dismal confusion of
thought on the question of democracy, is not altogether clear himself.
Thus he tells us that “the various equalitarian methods of democratic
control, such as general elections and representative government, are
to be considered as no more than well-tried and . . . reasonably effective
institutional safeguards against tyranny, always open to improvement”
(i-OS. 125). This statement has the undoubted merit of bringing out
two important truths. One is that democratic institutions are evolved
historically in the struggle against various forms of oppression — that
they are not set up in accordance with some perfect model of “democ-
racy” but in accordance with the conditions and needs of particular
class struggles. The other is that democracy is not an “all or none”
characteristic of political systems, but that particular political systems
THE BATTLE OP DEMOCRACY
265
provide a variety of methods of institutional control over rulers, some
more and some less democratic, and that the measure of control which
may be exerted through one institution in the interests of one class
may be counteracted by the greater measure of control exerted through
another institution in the interests of another class. But yet in writing
about democracy Dr. Popper postulates the existence of “a set of
institutions which permit public control”, without taking into account
the fact that society is divided into classes and that there are powerful insti-
tutions for pushing the interests of classes — institutions for assuring that
effective control , the last word , shall belong to one class and not to another .
True, democratic institutions do provide “institutional safeguards
against tyranny”. But that is not the same thing as providing “equali-
tarian methods of control”. When he speaks of “equalitarian methods”
Dr. Popper implies that no one class has more weight in the exercise of
control than any other. But this could never happen, and certainly has
never been known to happen, in a class-divided society in which an
exploiting class, owning means of production, can exist only by
maintaining its general management of the processes of production. In
the system of control of the office-holders in such a society the insti-
tutions of control allow to some groups among “the public” far more
controlling influence than others, and their influence is measured not
by their abilities or their devotion to the public welfare, but by their
property.
2. PUBLIC CONTROL AND CLASS CONTROL
The fallacy in Dr. Poppers account of democracy (and not of his
account alone) lies in his defining it simply as “public control of the
rulers” without asking how, in a society divided into classes, such
control is divided between the classes.
It is because he ignores the existence of classes, and ignores the ways
in which people in the aggregate work for and protect class interests
through institutions, including democratic institutions, that Dr.
Popper can counterpose as he does the issue of extending and strength-
ening democracy and the issue of class-power. It is only another
example of the fallacious posing of antitheses. If we think concretely
about the real social relations and social processes which confront us,
instead of engaging in merely abstract phrases, it becomes evident that
the question of extending and strengthening democracy raises the question of
class power , and does not supersede it. Similarly the question of class
2 66
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
power raises that of extending and strengthening democracy . These questions
mutally involve and do not exclude one another. This is what
Marx discovered with his dialectical approach to the study of social
questions.
Dr. Popper counterposes to the issue of one class or another exer-
cising power through the government institutions the issue of insti-
tuting checks on the power of individual office-holders. He sees as all-
important the question of whether such checks, or such control, can be
exercised without violence or only by the use of violence. In the first
case there is democracy, in the second tyranny. But the institution of
non-violent methods of checking and controlling office-holders,
including dismissing them, does not remove the issue of class power.
For the issue remains of whether the political system permits or does
not permit an exploiting class effectively to protect, through the insti-
tutions of government, its property rights and its mode of exploitation.
Marxists entirely agree about the desirability of instituting forms of
democratic control over office-holders. But that does not prevent us
from advocating effective measures to put an end to exploitation,
including government institutions which will effectively enable those
who were exploited to ensure that they shall be exploited no more. We
agree with Dr. Popper in not wanting to be ruled by tyrants — whom
he has defined as office-holders who cannot be removed from office
except by armed force. But we do not want to be ruled by servants of
the capitalist class either.
Arguments about democracy are always deceptive when they ignore
the existence of classes, class struggles and class power. This is what
Dr. Popper ignores when he classifies all governments as democracies
or tyrannies, and says that democracy is simply a system of institutional
control over office-holders which permits them to be shifted without
violence. And he goes on ignoring it when he holds forth about “the
democratic principle” or “the principle of a democratic policy”. He
represents democracy as the institution of “safeguards against tyranny”,
paying no attention to the safeguards which continue to be required,
and are always instituted, for class interests.
When Dr. Popper says that “the principle of a democratic policy” is
to develop and protect “political institutions for the avoidance of
tyranny”, his “democratic principle” is so conveniently vague and
abstract, in relation to contemporary problems, that it can be, and
regularly is, appealed to in justification of political institutions to avoid
damage to capitalist interests. This is represented as avoiding the tyranny
THE BATTLE OF DEMOCRACY
267
of prohibiting one class from exploiting another. Of course a demo-
cratic policy is opposed to tyranny, and will not permit rulers to rule
without a measure of democratic control. But to establish political
institutions to safeguard the majority from being exploited by the
minority demands establishing a greater degree of democratic control
than is permissible with political institutions that ensure that the major-
ity shall go on being exploited. Marxism poses the issue of a policy to
establish and build the former institutions, and to disestablish and
destroy the latter. That is not opposed to any genuine democratic
principle of public control over office-holders.
Dr. Popper tells us that the policy advocated by Marx “amounts to
doing the work of the enemies of the open society . . . And against the
Manifesto which says ambiguously: ‘The first step in the revolution of
the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling
class — to win the battle of democracy’, I assert that if this is accepted as
the first step, then the battle of democracy will be lost”. Where Marx
went wrong was in telling the working class “that there is only one way
to improve things, that of the complete conquest of power. But tins neglects
the one really important thing about democracy, that it checks and
balances power” (2-OS. 162). If ever a single person, group or class
achieves “the complete conquest of power” there is an end to democ-
racy, and tyranny holds sway. Democracy is a matter of “checks and
balances”. Rather than one person, one group or one class exercising
unchecked and unbalanced power, different persons, groups and classes
check and balance each other.
However, there is a contradiction here, and Marxists see it quite
clearly. On the one side is the demand in a capitalist society that the
capitalist class shall always have its say in the control of government,
and that government, while it may be got to do something to check
the rapacity of individual capitalists and make them compromise their
interests, will never suppress them. On the other side, in contradiction
to this, is the demand that institutional progress shall continue towards
“equal democratic rights” and “freedom from exploitation”. We
cannot have both. If institutions are democratic in so far as all persons
concerned have rights of control over the office-holders, it is these
specific rights which are presumably to be classified as “democratic
rights”. They are not equal so long as membership of a propertied
class confers a power of control not possessed by other classes, any
more than there is “freedom from exploitation” so long as the exploit-
ing class retains the right and the power to go on exploiting. So if we
268
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
are going to satisfy the demand of the capitalist class to retain its stake
in society and the rights that go with it we must set strict limits to
institutional progress towards “equal democratic rights” and “freedom
from exploitation”.
The establishment of democratic institutions has always been a
matter of the fight for them against opposition; and Dr. Popper
himself speaks of “the battle for democracy” (2-OS. 161). What he
does not see is that this battle is always a class battle . Democratic insti-
tutions guaranteeing democratic rights have been fought for and
introduced by exploiting classes only when they were concerned to
protect themselves and others from the oppression of some other form
of exploitation than their own, and to secure at least their own control
over the activities of persons placed in office. No more than this has
ever been secured without organised pressure from the exploited,
while the exploiters for their part contrive to limit the democratic
features of government institutions and to rig them in their favour. The
history of the working-class movement has been a history of organised
class struggle, not only to secure better conditions in the face of capi-
talist exploitation, but to win democratic rights and to have them em-
bodied in law. Traditionally, the working-class movement has been
democratic. It has fought for democratic rights because these are the
political means to its economic emancipation. Its own organisations
have been democratic too — so that for all their defects they have set the
model for democratic methods of conducting business. The advice of
Marxists to the working-class movement is, and has always been, to
organise democratically, to fight for democratic rights, and to fight
against every attack and restriction on these rights. But rights are won
in order to be used. And Marxists advise the working class never to be
kicked around by those who consider the interests of capital and
profit paramount, and never to be duped into accepting their policies,
but to use its organisation to defend and improve its standards and,
by defeating the policies and overcoming the opposition of the capital-
ist class, to lay the foundations of a co-operative socialist common-
wealth.
Dr. Popper says that there is “ambiguity” in the statement of The
Communist Manifesto that “to raise the proletariat to the position of the
ruling class” is “to win the battle of democracy”. There is considerable
ambiguity in his own dispositions for winning that battle. On the one
hand he is for “equal democratic rights” and “freedom from exploita-
tion”; on the other hand he is for perpetuating capitalist control over
THE BATTLE OF DEMOCRACY
269
government and capitalist exploitation of labour. There is no ambiguity
at all in the programme of The Communist Manifesto. It is to continue the
struggle of working people for democratic rights to protect themselves from
exploitation and its consequences up to the point of abolishing exploitation
and the power of exploiting classes .
From his “democratic principle” Dr. Popper deduces the
consequence that it is better to accept a bad policy in a democracy than
to submit to a wise and benevolent tyranny. Why should we do either?
And the choice is in any case a somewhat unreal one — for whereas we
suffer much from bad policies in a democracy,- the prospect of relief
through a “wise and benevolent tyranny” is remote. Dr. Popper is
evidently merely counselling patience in putting up with bad policies.
“You may not think much of the established parties but don't be
kidded by the Communists who invite you to submit to a wise and
benevolent tyranny administered by themselves. Democracy is always
better than tyranny.” But it is Dr. Popper who is kidding us. Com-
munists do not invite you to submit to a tyranny, whether benevolent
or otherwise. They simply urge you not to accept bad policies. They
point out that in a democracy we have democratic mass organisations,
which we can use to compel a better policy, and to counteract the
influence of those whose interests have dictated a bad policy. The work-
ing class should use its democratic rights to enforce its interests when
these are threatened by policies dictated by capitalist interests.
Dr. Popper condemns the policy “of Marxist parties” because it
“can be characterised as one of making the workers suspicious of democ-
racy” (2-OS. 161). But Marxism does not make the workers “sus-
picious of democracy”. It makes them suspicious of the capitalist class.
It makes them suspicious of the ways in which institutions are managed
and governments engineered in the capitalist interest. It makes them
suspicious of the ways in which the agencies of information and propa-
ganda are actually controlled, of the ways in which education is
actually conducted, of the ways in which the judiciary actually
functions. It makes them suspicious of the ways in which, whenever a
crisis threatens the profit system, governments invariably launch attacks
on the standards of the working class. It makes them suspicious of the
ways in which the police break up peaceful protests against social
injustices and preparations for war and spy upon and intimidate their
organisers, and of the ways in which the armed forces are sent all over
the world to protect the investment of capital. It explains how and why
these things happen, and says that they had better be opposed and
270
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
stopped, and that the only way to oppose and stop them is by demo-
cratic mass organisation.
Dr. Popper has told us himself, and with truth, that no democratic
institutions are “foolproof”. The policies operated through them are
not, he tells us, necessarily “right or good or wise”. It is up to us to try
to make them so, he suggests, through the public control over policies
which democratic institutions permit. But he might have added that
there is another way in which democratic institutions are not foolproof
— they can always be rigged.
Everybody who has anything to do with any democratic organisa-
tion knows very well that conferences, for example, can be rigged, if
the organisers have decided beforehand what they want to put across
and have managed to deceive the delegates either by lies or by with-
holding information. Similarly governments are rigged when the
electors return members to parliament who have promised to protect
their interests, and then the majority party sets up a cabinet which
works all the time in the closest consultation with a small gang of
monopolists and uses all the powers of force and persuasion vested in
the state machinery to put across the measures which they have agreed
upon behind the scenes. If the people whose interests are at stake in the
policies operated through democratic institutions are thus deceived into
accepting policies contrary to their interests, they may be said to have
been made fools of, if no worse. The value of Marxism to the working-
class movement is that it teaches the workers not to be made fools of by
those adept at rigging democracy against the workers, and to work for
a democratic policy to defend the interests of working people against
capital, and ultimately to emancipate society altogether from all forms
of the exploitation of man by man.
“We must learn”, says Dr. Popper, “that in the long run all political
problems are institutional problems, problems of the legal framework
rather than persons, and that progress towards more equality can be
safeguarded only by the institutional control of power” (2-OS. 162).
How very true that is ! With institutions as they are in Britain at the
time of writing, if we vote out Mr. Wilson we will only get Mr. Heath
instead — and a lot of good that will do us ! The real political problems
for us are certainly not merely those of one person rather than another,
but of “institutional control of power”. The same applies to Americans
when it comes to a presidential election. That is exactly what Marxism
teaches. But where Dr. Popper’s arguments, and all arguments like
them, deceive us about democracy is in their assumption that the
THE BATTLE OF DEMOCRACY
271
democratic “institutional control of power” operates independently of
classes, class interests and class struggles.
This assumption is not true, and could not be true so long as
antagonistic class interests continue to exist. The “institutional control
of power” presents a battle for control between different classes, each of
which has its organisations and other institutional means for pushing its
interests and aims. At the present time, in capitalist countries like
Britain and the U.S.A., institutional control, as operated through the
entire “legal framework”, is rigged in favour of the capitalist class,
which through its organisations and institutional facilities maintains a
pretty firm control over the conduct of affairs. This means that the
institutions of government, in their totality, confer effective power
upon the capitalist class. That class still virtually exercises, as Marx
said, “a dictatorship”. Marxism poses the question of how to alter this
state of affairs — of how to build a democracy in which the “institutional
control of power” will ensure the advance from capitalism to socialism.
3. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC POWER
One thing that stops Dr. Popper’s objections to Marxism from be-
coming boring is that they are full of surprises. And perhaps one of the
chief surprises is that, when he comes to explain the basic errors of
Marx’s theory of “the dictatorship of the proletariat”, and to show how
these led Marx to advocate replacing democracy by dictatorship, he
informs us that Marx made the mistake of adopting a “disparaging
attitude towards political power” (2-OS. 126), and that Marxism is
a “doctrine of the impotence of political power” (2-OS. 129).
This, he explains, was the result of Marx misunderstanding the
distinction between “political” and “economic” power. Marx thought
that economics ruled politics, so that political power was always secon-
dary to economic power and impotent in face of it. Dr. Popper even
has a kind word to say in excuse of this error. For Marx “discovered
the significance of economic power; and it is understandable that he
exaggerated its status. He and the Marxists see economic power every-
where” (2-OS. 127). It was this that led him to “the dogmatic doctrine
that economic power is more fundamental than physical power, or the
power of the state” (2-OS. 128).
But on the contrary, says Dr. Popper, “it is only the active interven-
tion of the state — the protection of property by laws backed by
physical sanctions — which makes wealth a potential source of power;
272
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
for without this intervention a man would soon be without his wealth.
Economic power is therefore entirely dependent on political and
physical power” (2-OS. 128).
If it were not that I hesitate to describe Dr. Karl Marx as Dr. Karl
Popper’s grandmother, I would say that the latter is singularly unsuc-
cessful in this attempt to teach his grandmother to suck eggs. It will
perhaps be remembered that in contradiction to what he here tells us,
Dr. Popper told us elsewhere that to say the state protects property is
nothing but an “historicist” dogma about “the functions of the state”.
Marx, on the other hand, always consistently maintained that the
state protects property and that, without this role of the state, property,
together with the wealth and economic power that accrues from it,
could not be preserved. It was of course for this very reason that Marx
concluded that we camiot make any fundamental change in institutions
of property, or end the evil effects of the exercise of economic power
by men of property, without the political power to make the change.
It is not Marx but Dr. Popper himself who creates confusions by
introducing the notion of “economic power” as a power separated
from political power, and asking which is dependent on which. Marx
never did so. He never wrote about “economic power” in this way. It is
like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. A dialectical
approach to understanding human institutions in their real connections
in processes of development saves Marxists from the puzzles resulting
from such questions. Marx showed how from the formation of property
and the ensuing conflicts of class interests there have resulted forms and
operations of state power to protect property and to promote class
interests. If a class is interested in furthering its economic power by
either preserving or changing property relations, then it has to seek
ways and means of doing so through the instrumentality of the state,
that is, by controlling the operations of political power. And no political
power has yet been known which did not serve, in one way or another,
the furtherance of economic power.
“Of course,” Dr. Popper continues, “in practice Marxists never
fully relied on the doctrine of the impotence of political power. So far
as they had an opportunity to act, or to plan action, they usually
assumed, like everybody else, that political power can be used to
control economic power. But their plans and action were never based
on a clear refutation of their orginal theory, nor upon any well-
considered view of that most fundamental problem of politics: the
control of the controller, of the dangerous accumulation of power
THE BATTLE OF DEMOCRACY
273
represented in the state. They never realised the full significance of
democracy as the only known means to achieve this control”
(2-OS. 129).
Marxists never in fact needed any “clear refutation of their original
theory”, because they never believed in any “doctrine of the impotence
of political power”. And it is Dr. Popper himself who lacks “any well-
considered view of that most fundamental problem of all politics : the
control of the controller”. According to the way he sees it, “we” or
“the public” must “control the controller”. We must do this by
electing office-holders and controlling what they do. And the elected
office-holders will then, on behalf of the electors, use their political
power “to control economic power”. Marx (or so Dr. Popper says)
could never grasp the significance of this democratic process because
he believed that political power was impotent in face of economic
power. Political power could not control economic power, but on the
contrary, economic power controlled political power. The thing to do,
therefore, was not to secure democratic control of political power, but
to make a direct assault on economic power by a revolutionary
uprising which would put paid to economic power by chasing away
those who possessed it, locking them up, or hanging them on lamp-
posts. Such a “doctrine” may well be considered hardly “well-con-
sidered”. But Dr. Popper’s simple scheme of double control, where the
public controls political power and political power controls economic
power, is hardly well-considered either.
What concerns us today in the matter of “economic power” is the
power of capital. The economic power inseparable from ownership of
capital is the power to accumulate surplus value from the exploitation
of labour. In this process one capital swallows another, and an ever
greater and more dangerous accumulation of economic power results
in the hands of a few industrialists and financiers. To preserve and
control it, there is the capitalist control of political power. For, as we
discovered when we began to discuss democracy, what has actually
happened is that the class which owns the means of production, and
exercises the economic power which that ownership confers, has found
its own ways and means to secure for itself effective “control of the
controller”. One class is effectively in political control. And that is why
that class continues to possess and control economic power. So “the
fundamental problem of the control of the controller” is in fact the
problem of which class is going to have political power.
Marx therefore concluded, not that we must immediately attack
274
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
economic power because so long as it exists political power is impotent,
but that before any effective change can be made in economic manage-
ment the “dangerous accumulation of power represented in the state”
must be taken out of the control of the present possessors and benefici-
aries of economic power, namely, the capitalist class. And so far was he
from believing that “political power is impotent” in face of economic
power, that his whole “doctrine” rested on the belief that a sufficient
accumulation of political power in the hands of a revolutionary politi-
cal movement could stop the nation’s economic resources being used
for capitalist profit and use them instead for the people’s welfare. Such
economic power as might still be left in the hands of private capital
could then, he thought, be effectively controlled.
4. SOCIALIST DEMOCRACY
What is necessary, if it is proposed to do away with capitalism, is to
break up the institutional ties of big business with the executive
machinery of the state, and likewise with the organs of opinion for-
mation. It is necessary to smash the whole organisation of control by
big business, a control which is built into the entire machine. No elected
administration, whatever its socialist aims, and no aspirants to political
power, can end the domination of capital unless the organisation of
this domination is smashed. That means that the strings of control must
be cut, the channels of influence destroyed, the key personnel removed
from their offices. The whole state organisation of administration and
compulsion must be adapted, under a new command, to serve new
purposes, dictated by working-class socialist organisations and not by
big business. To accomplish this, however it is done, whether by
armed workers storming government offices or by more constitu-
tional means, is to establish “the dictatorship of the proletariat”.
It is not only Dr. Popper who warns us that, whatever Marxist
parties may say about their programmes and aims, whenever they are
in the government they always try to turn it into a tyranny. Dr.
Popper’s contribution is to demonstrate from first principles why this
must always be so. It is because, following the alleged teachings of Marx,
Communists insist on having “complete” and uncontrolled power, and
to this end employ violence against democratic institutions so as to
dismantle the controls of power and the “checks and balances” which
such institutions impose. What Marxism teaches, however, is that we
should dismantle the control of power by the capitalist class in order to
THE BATTLE OF DEMOCRACY
275
build socialism, and to this end conduct a struggle for democratic
rights and use them when we have got them.
Organisation is needed both to smash the capitalist control of power
and to control the exercise of power that replaces it. But in Dr.
Popper’s account of democratic control it is never admitted that it is
only organisation that can exert an effective control of power. Democratic
control by unorganised individuals is a myth. They may express
opinions and vote, but it is organisations that do the real controlling.
And while individuals express individual opinions, it is through organi-
sation that influential bodies of public opinion are formed. Without
revolutionary labour organisations, then, majority public opinion will
always be moulded by the great mass media whose propaganda serves
the ruling class. People in the mass will only learn to turn a deaf ear to
this propaganda when they have themselves in the mass entered upon
an organised struggle. And without such organisation it is impossible
to break and replace the highly organised control of the state machine
by the ruling class.
Dr. Popper says that militant mass organisation violates the prin-
ciples of democracy and leads to dictatorship. On the contrary, it is
the means to tear control of out the hands of a minority ruling class and
exercise it on behalf of the majority. It means that working people have
the democratic organisation to exert effective and continuous control over how
affairs are run for them .
In capitalist parliamentary democracy the mass of working people
have the right to vote for members of parliament. But having done so,
they exert practically no further control themselves until there is
another general election — though of course they do have democratic
rights to lobby their representatives and to protest against unpopular
policies through mass meetings. It is this lack of organised popular
control over the executive that allows, despite the democracy of
parliamentary elections, effective continuous control over the executive
by highly organised big business. Because it is this latter control that
has to be abolished if we are to get socialism, the method of effective
control which socialism demands is that of continuous control by mass
democratic organisation. In socialist revolution the organisations which led
the struggle against capital take over from the organisations of the exploiters
both the offices of power and the control of power. It is from this that
socialist democracy emerges as a system of government distinct from
capitalist democracy.
The central democratic achievement of the bourgeois revolution has
PREMISES FOR POLITICS
276
been the institution of forms of representative government, in which
the key institutions are parliaments or similar elected legislative
assemblies. Such an assembly is distinct from the executive, from the
“ bureaucratic and military organisation" of the state. But by making
laws, by holding ministers and permanent officials answerable to it, by
setting up committees and commissions, and prosecuting inquiries, it
exerts powers of control over the executive. Of course, the individual
electors do not exert such control directly: their representatives exert it.
The fact that in the power structure of capitalist democracies the
place of legislative assemblies is as instruments of control is clearly
indicated in the history of the so-called “mother of parliaments" in
Britain. The English Parliament began as a far from democratic
institution by which the feudal barons sought to exercise a measure of
control over the arbitrary power of the king. In the course of time the
burgesses obtained entry into parliament, and its power increased
especially by way of controlling the royal finances. Eventually it
became the sole authority for making and unmaking laws, and assumed
powers of control over every aspect of government without excep-
tion. This is the “sovereignty" of parliament, and such is the position in
Britain today. But at the same time as universal suffrage gave members
of all classes the right to vote, and all classes the right to form their
political organisations, the system of parliamentary control became,
for the time being, a pretty effective system of control of government
by big business. As we have seen, this took place as a result of the
institutional links established between business interests and party
machines, and of both with the entire “bureaucratic and military
organisation" of the state. In the U.S.A. the constitutional relations
between Congress and Senate, on the one hand, and the President, as
chief executive, on the other show up even more clearly the controlling
function of elected assemblies, just as political practice in the U.S.A.
shows up even more clearly how big business controls government.
The object of socialist revolution is not to destroy the democratic
achievements of the preceding bourgeois revolution but, on the con-
trary, to make use of them. Hence socialist revolution does not imply,
as Dr. Popper seems to think, smashing up elected assemblies and
parliaments and instituting a tyrannical rule not subject to any such
form of control. Responsibility of the executive to a representative
assembly, and its control by such an assembly, is necessary for the
democratic government of a large modern community — for without it,
as Dr. Popper absolutely correctly says, power could become uncon-
THE BATTLE OF DEMOCRACY
277
trolled and the executive could do what it liked and trample on people’s
rights. Hence the policy of socialists must always be — and this is what
Marxism quite unambiguously advises — to make use of the controlling
functions of representative assemblies where they already exist , and to carry
out a fight to get them instituted where they do not exist.
The point is not to get rid of representative assemblies and rule
without them, but to turn them into effective instruments of popular
democratic control. And that means defeating and putting out of business
the old political party machines, and making the assemblies they
dominated into institutions of control wherein the political represen-
tatives of the organised majority of working people carry out the business of
control in the interests of and under the instructions of the members of the
organisations that sent them there. It is in this way that the organised masses
can control government. They do it through the controlling power of a
democratically elected assembly which their own organisations domi-
nate — while at the same time their organisations can play a direct
part in various functions of economic management, local government,
the administration of the social services, control of the mass media,
and so on.
For Marxism, in all circumstances and all stages of “the battle of
democracy”, democracy is not a matter of merely allowing individuals
to vote while organisations of the exploiting classes take control of the execu-
tive organs of power , but of the activity of popular democratic organisations
and the control of power through them alone.
PART THREE
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
I
EQUALITY
I. EQUALITY OF RIGHTS
Like everyone who is in favour of democracy, Dr. Popper brackets it
with equality and freedom. He speaks of “general elections and
representative government” as “equalitarian methods of democratic
control”, and of “the institutional control of power” as “progress
towards equality”. According to his account of it, democratic institu-
tions, with the provision of representation and a voice in the control
of affairs to all persons of all classes, bring equality; equality is lost,
just as freedom is lost, without democratic institutions; and democratic
progress towards equality is at the same time enhancement of indi-
vidual freedom.
What is this “equality” which is somehow bound up with
democracy, and towards which democracy progresses?
It is evident enough that people are in fact unequal in respect of
abilities, characters, bodily attributes, desires and needs; and that not
only would it be impossible by any measures taken by democratic (or
any other) institutions to remove such inequalities, but such removal
would even be undesirable since, as Dr. Popper says (expressing
agreement on this point with the philosopher Kant), “the variety
and individuality of human characters and opinions” is “one of the
main conditions of moral as well as material progress” (2-OS. 357).
Equality is realised through the removal of inequalities. And the
sort of inequalities we are concerned with in democratic progress
towards equality are those inequalities which result from social
institutions, as distinct from what may be called “natural” inequalities.
Inequalities which result from social institutions may be removed, and
equality instituted instead, by changing or reforming social institutions.
So Dr. Popper very logically and properly concludes that, although
there can be no question of removing the inequalities exemplified in
the physical and mental make-up of human individuals, “this has no
bearing upon the question whether or not we decide to treat men,
especially in political issues, as equals, or as much like equals as possible ;
that is to say, as possessing equal rights, and equal claims to equal
treatment” (2-OS. 234).
282
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
The inequalities which democracy removes are inequalities of rights ,
and the equality it brings is, Dr. Popper maintains, that of “equal
rights” and “equality before the law”. “Equalitarianism proper,” he
says, “is the demand that the citizens of the state should be treated
impartially. It is the demand that birth, family, connection, or wealth
must not influence those who administer the law to the citizens”
(i-OS. 95). “Men are not equal,” he concludes; “but we can decide
to fight for equal rights” (2-OS. 278).
These explanations make it clear that democracy is indeed bound
up with equality. For the democratic principle of establishing measures
of institutional “control over the rulers by the ruled” implies that “the
ruled” should possess equal rights of participation in this control: to
the extent that that is not so, the instituted control is defective in
respect to democracy.
Understanding “equality” in this way, it is evident that “general
elections and representative government” are indeed “equalitarian
methods of democratic control”, and that universal suffrage is not
merely “progress towards equality” but the establishment of a very
important measure of equality. It means that everyone, irrespective
of “birth, family, connection, or wealth”, and irrespective likewise of
ability and personality (provided he is not a lunatic), has the equal
right to vote, to make representations to his representative, and to
seek nomination himself, and that no class is excluded from taking
part in this democratic business of institutional control (as the slaves
were, for example, in the imperfect and far from equalitarian
democracy of ancient Athens). Similarly, the laws which the elected
legislature enacts apply to everyone in the same way, so that everyone
is entitled to the same legal protection for his person and property, and
liable to the same penalties for breaking the law.
Even when everyone has the right to vote, and a system of the
impartial rule of law is well established, there is likely still to remain
plenty of room for democratic reform, continuing the progress
towards equality. For example, the electoral system can be made more
democratic, and the equality of electors more equal, by rearrangement
of constituencies, by devising systems of proportional representation,
and so on. Loopholes in the law and in the administration of the law
can be stopped up. Progress towards equality means removing
inequalities, and we must always look out for the sorts of defects in
organisation and administration which might make one vote count
for more than another, or enable some people to evade theTaw or
EQUALITY
283
to use it unfairly for their own gain and to the detriment of others.
Dr. Popper therefore holds before us an invigorating prospect of
continued democratic progress.
But there still remains a question about equality of rights which
Dr. Popper never asks, and this is the question pressed by Marxists.
Even when everyone has the equal right to vote and join in political
organisation, and when everyone is equally amenable to the laws (and
Marxists have never doubted that these equalities are worth fighting
for, and worth fighting to preserve), do there not remain other
inequalities which it would be desirable to remove, quite apart from
those individual inequalities which we all agree are characteristic of
human nature and have “no bearing ,, on the political struggle for
equality?
Rights in general are not (as Dr. Popper would presumably agree,
in view of his objections to “essentialism ,, ) inherent in men as men,
by virtue of their common human essence. They correspond rather
to definite social requirements of definite people situated in definite
circumstances. Thus, for example, the right to own property in
means of production and to hire labour is not an “inalienable human
right” but a specific right applicable only in certain definite conditions
of development of a commodity-producing economy. Such a right is
unheard of in a primitive tribe, and is precluded by socialist relations
of production. In general, when new relations of production supplant
old, rights associated with old forms of property are lost. They are
abolished, along with the old forms of property. Thus the rights of
feudal lords, from “the right of the first night” to the right to levy
private armies, were lost and, indeed, forcibly suppressed when
capitalism was developed; and similarly, capitalists must lose their
rights to own capital and exploit labour when socialism is introduced.
Rights may be claimed to exact service from others and command
their actions, or to live free from oppression and exploitation by
others. Clearly, the first sort of claims are claims for unequal rights ,
and the second for equalisation of rights. And as clearly, these sorts of
claims are contradictory.
To discuss questions of equalisation of rights, as Dr. Popper proposes,
it would be as well, therefore, to inquire into the source of removeable
inequalities in social institutions.
Marx undertook this enquiry, and reached very definite conclusions.
There is a common source of inequalities, and they have all sprung
from the institution of private property in means of production, class
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
284
divisions, and the exploitation of man by man. Dr. Popper may have
failed to take account of this because, although he begins by giving the
word “institutions” a very wide reference, he most of the time confines
his intention exclusively to institutions of management and govern-
ment, and completely overlooks the institutional connections between
these and such institutions as the institutions of property, class division
and exploitation.
No person of sense can object to one man’s possessing greater
natural abilities than another, for this is due to no defect in social
institutions but, on the contrary, with good institutions, encouraging
the employment of all abilities for improving the human condition,
we could all gain advantage from this sort of inequality. What we
can reasonably object to is that one man should be provided with
opportunities to develop his abilities denied to another, and still more
than one man should be compelled to sell the use of his abilities for
the profit of another. These are inequalities resulting from social
institutions and the way they work, and could be removed by changing
the institutions. Again, that people should receive unequal rewards
for unequal contributions to social life may seem fair enough, but it
represents a gross inequality in the distribution of the means of life
when some receive a superfluity provided from the labour of others
because they own property in means of production, while others
receive much less because they can only work and own no such
property.
These inequalities are not removed simply by instituting general
elections, representative government, equal political rights and
equality before the law. But their source is the same as that of all
inequalities of rights, namely, in the institution of property relations
within which one class exploits another.
If throughout the centuries until quite recently every political system
was a system of unequal political rights, it was because exploiting
classes preserved rights for themselves which they denied to others,
as slaveowners denied rights to the slaves, or feudal lords denied rights
to the serfs. Many political philosophers have tried to make out that
political inequalities have natural causes. Aristotle, for example, tried
to make out that the political institutions which denied political rights
to slaves were a consequence of some people being natural slaves
unfitted by nature to exercise the rights of free men. Similarly some
theoreticians of racism today try to make out that the natural
differences in the colour of men’s skins are differences which render
EQUALITY
285
persons without pigmentation alone capable of exercising political
rights. These sorts of natural disabilities on the part of whole classes
and races do not in fact exist. What has happened is that the social
institutions attached political rights to certain forms of property, and
that is why rights were unequal. Similarly, certain forms of property
carried with them their own law and exemptions from laws applicable
to those without such property, so that men were not equal before
the law.
In democratic capitalist countries today the democratic process has
at last removed most of these political inequalities. Such as remain are
merely anomalies, hangovers from earlier times before democratic
demands began to be won, but removeable without thereby altering
the capitalist property relations — such as the double vote for business-
men and members of universities, which was only a few years ago
abolished in Britain; or such as the legal exemptions which peers still
enjoy in Britain. Dr. Popper very rightly calls this “progress towards
equality”. But the causes of inequalities in property relations and class
relations remain. So long as the system of exploitation of man by man
remains there remain gross inequalities between men, which are only
glossed over, but not alleviated, by the existence of certain “equalities”
of political rights and “equality before the law”.
There are rights necessarily associated with property, so that the
inequalities of private property entail inequalities of rights. When
there is private property in means of production it confers upon the
owner the right of appropriating the products, and therefore the
right of appropriating the products of the labour of other people who
work for him with those means of production. The capitalist class
and the working class may all be “equal before the law” as citizens,
and each individual may have a vote irrespective of his class, but they
do not possess equal rights — for the one has the right to appropriate
the products of labour, and the other has not. And this is inequality.
It is impossible for there to be equality of rights as between exploiters
and the exploited, whatever rights of voting, bargaining, striking,
organising, protection of working conditions and provisions of
services and holidays the exploited may have won.
Dr. Popper and others may say that this sort of inequality does not
matter, so long as wages, working conditions and social services are
good. If that were true, we had best stop talking about institutional
“progress towards equality”, since instituted inequality does not
matter. But it does matter, because so long as it exists wages, conditions
286
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
and social services are under threat, and can only be made good and
kept good by a fight; and because this system of inequality has always
been and still is inseparable from underemployment of resources,
crises, poverty and wars.
One may justly protest that the phrase “equality of rights”, as used
by Dr. Popper as well as by many other people, is extremely vague
and loose. Dr. Popper himself keeps on talking only of certain political
and legal rights, and notably of the right by voting, and by political
organisation, to elect, control and dismiss the “rulers”. These are
rights which we in the democratic countries have won and value
(though working-class organisations could still use them to consider-
ably more effect, and though some democratic states still use all their
power, including armed force, to prevent their being exercised in
some other countries in which some of their citizens have invested
their capital). But besides the right to vote and to organise, and
“equality before the law”, there are other rights which people have
sought to win through democratic institutions, namely, rights to
education, health, social security, enjoyment of leisure, and free speech.
How equal are these?
In Britain, at all events, everyone not only nominally possesses but
actually enjoys basic minimum rights of this kind. At the same time,
there can be no doubt at all that the ownership of property, and the
income accruing from it, confers the right to very substantial advan-
tages in all these respects, quite irrespective of personal merit. The
mere possession of enough money guarantees better opportunities for
education, protection of health, security and enjoyment of leisure —
while as to free speech, it is a well-known fact that wealth confers on
its possessors very considerable privileges in the way of ownership
and control of organs of propaganda and opinion-formation. Effec-
tively, these rights are not equal, and cannot be so long as property
relations remain unchanged.
Dr. Popper has pointed out, and Marxists agree, because we knew
it before, that there can be no question of removing all “natural”
inequalities between persons in respect of characters, physical strength
and abilities. But in this context it should also be said that even this
is not true without qualification. What of the inequality between a
well-nourished person and an under-nourished one, one who is
crippled or suffers from congenital disease and a healthy man, the
sound in mind and body and the sick? Much can be done to remove
these inequalities. Even the inequality between clever and not so
EQUALITY
287
clever people might be reduced by provision of equally good con-
ditions of upbringing and education from conception onwards. Again,
the disabilities which women naturally suffer as a result of the
constitution of their bodies and of their bearing children can readily
be compensated by providing special consideration, special services,
special compensating advantages, for women. But effectively the right
of those without money for assistance in these respects is not equal to
that of those with command over money, social services or no social
services.
Money, the universal medium of exchange in commodity-producing
society, is in one way a great equaliser — for everyone is equally entitled
to receive money for whatever he has to sell, and to buy whatever he
wishes with the money he has received. This entitlement has nothing
to do with birth or rank, and applies to the beggar as much as to the
millionaire, and to the peasant as much as to the lord. Former rigid
divisions of rank broke down before the equalising power of money.
At the same time commodity-production inevitably breeds inequalities,
since when both means of production and labour-power are com-
modities, some acquire means of production and appropriate the
products, while others have only their labour-power to sell. These
inequalities may then make no difference to either the right to vote
or to “eqpality before the law”. They make a great deal of difference
to other rights. In these there is still inequality. Everyone possesses
certain basic and essential rights, but the institutions at the same time
impose inequality, because they confer on the class that appropriates
the products of the labour of the other the right to substantial
advantages.
Dr. Popper and others may justly praise such British institutions as
universal free education, the national health service, and social security
legislation, and point out what an advance they are over conditions
that prevailed not long ago. Very good ! These institutions do indeed
represent victories in the struggle for people’s rights. But only in a
socialist Britain will we be able to cite them as examples of equality
of rights.
2. EQUALTY AND THE ABOLITION OF CLASSES
But what of political equality itself? Is it true that the equal right to
vote and to take part in political organisation amounts, within a
capitalist organisation of society, to equal political rights in exercising
288
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
control over the rulers? It is not true. As was already remarked in a
previous chapter, the organisation for protecting and pushing the
interests of the capitalist class exerts an overwhelming controlling
influence over government, even though this control is that of a very
small minority in terms of the numbers of electors. This control may
be, and sometimes is, counteracted by the results of general elections;
but it is reinforced and works through the operation of a whole com-
plex of institutions, such as the party system and system of cabinet
government, the entire system of backstage political intrigue, the
entire layout of the so-called “corridors of power”, the organisation
of the civil service, the judiciary, the police and the military, and,
not least, the system of ownership and control of organs of mass
information and propaganda, and the management of the educational
system. All these institutions in their totality effectively institute
inequality of control over government by the different classes, and
make the capitalist class the ruling class. And, as Marxists have con-
tinually insisted, this inequality cannot be removed simply by counting
votes, but only by radical reforms in the entire working institutions
of government, or in other words in the structure of the democratic
state.
Similar considerations apply to so-called “equality before the law”.
Law is founded on rights, and exists to protect rights and ensure
their exercise — so that if certain rights are to be abolished the corre-
sponding law is changed or falls into disuse, if certain rights are to be
established the law defining and protecting them is adopted, and unless
there is a comprehensive and well-enforced system of law the “rights”
people may exercise depend solely on their own strength in getting
their way, and not on social institutions. So integral is this connection
of law and rights that in some languages the same word does service
for both. Unequal rights are therefore embodied in and protected by
law, and when persons with unequal rights stand before the law they
stand as unequals: they are “equal” only in the formal sense that each
is equally amenable to the law which decrees their inequality. Dr.
Popper lays it down that “birth, family, connection, or wealth must
not influence those who administer the law to the citizens”. These
are fine words, but how are judges to obey them when administering
laws which concern precisely the rights of birth, family, connection
and wealth?
Of course, if someone commits a theft, or an assault or murder,
or creates a public disturbance, his birth, family, connection or wealth
EQUALITY
289
must not influence the magistrate or judge (at least, the law says it
must not, although it often does, especially in cases of public disturbance
and in minor cases of theft or assault). This is because the citizens’
rights of property and of personal security demand protection
irrespective of the social status of offenders. And of course, through the
development of class struggle in capitalist society, the law comes to
protect not only the rights of capital but also rights of labour. This
is because that protection can be afforded as an item of the protection
of unequal rights based on capitalist property relations. The law
protects the right of the owner of means of production to buy labour
power and direct its employment, of the worker to sell labour power,
and of each to organise to get the best terms he can in the bargain.
That is the protection of unequal rights, and in affording it the law
upholds the rights to services and respect, and to appropriate the
products of labour, which accrue from birth, family, connection and
wealth.
There is no doubt that it is a great gain to have won and established
in capitalist society a system of law within which all persons in
authority have to act, which allows no exemptions, which allows not
only the right of capital to make profits but of labour to organise,
and which protects everyone’s personal property and personal security
at least against assaults by individuals if not against the economic
effects of the profit system. Marxists thoroughly agree with Dr.
Popper that these are gains worth defending from persons misguided
enough to wish to destroy them in favour of a lawless tyranny. He is
mistaken in including us among such misguided persons. But we
shall not boast that all this, good as it is, yet represents full “equality
before the law”, so long as the law upholds the inequalities inseparable
from capitalist property. Progress towards equality demands not only
that the law shall apply universally and equally to everyone, but that
laws which uphold inequalities shall give place to new laws which
abolish inequalities.
Progress towards equality has always been effected by the institu-
tional removal of instituted inequalities. And the policies of revolu-
tionary socialism which Marxists advocate are policies to continue this
progress. If Dr. Popper denies it, it is because he supposes that “general
elections and representative government” have done far more to
remove inequalities than is actually the case — and he can suppose that
only because he is blind to all inequalities except those which either
deny rights to political representation, organisation and ownership of
290
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
personal property to some classes or bestow on others exemptions
from the law. Workers do vote, they are represented, they are allowed
to organise, they have all legal rights to acquire and dispose of personal
property, and no one is exempted from the law — but that does not
bring equality between exploited and exploiters, nor make the classes
equal either in the exercise of political control over government or in
economic and cultural opportunities. There cannot be equality between
exploiters and exploited, and exploiting and exploited classes cannot
possibly be equal.
For this reason Engels said that “equality must not be merely
apparent, must not apply merely in the sphere of the state, but must
also be real, must be extended to the social and economic sphere . . .
the real content of the proletarian demand for equality is the demand
for the abolition of classes” (. Anti-Duhring , Part i, Chapter io).
Dr. Popper fears that to abolish classes would be so undemocratic
a proceeding as to plunge us from the heights of democracy into the
abyss of tyranny. But why should that be so? To abolish classes
involves suppressing and abolishing all those institutional means by
which the exploiting class maintains its control over government,
establishing institutional means by which social production can be
taken into social ownership and planned for social welfare, and
instituting laws which prohibit the exploitation of man by man.
Where is the departure from democracy? Such institutional changes
could not possibly be effected without the support of at least the
majority of the population, and there is nothing in them which
requires the rule of any persons, or of any “strong man”, independent
of popular democratic control through democratic institutions. The
inequalities consequent on private property in means of production,
including over-riding control of government by a small minority for
its own profit, would be removed. But to remove these sorts of
privileges for a minority at the expense of the majority, and even to
take very firm steps to prevent the possibility of anyone ever being
able to restore them, would not abolish democratic control of the
rulers by the ruled but rather provide a basis for strengthening it.
When Dr. Popper, like other supporters of the capitalist democratic
establishment, speaks of “equality” and of “democracy” he speaks as
though society consisted simply of an aggregation of individuals
whose affairs are directed by certain persons holding government
office and regulated by a set of laws. He says nothing about the
property relations and consequent class relations which define the
EQUALITY
291
economic structure of society, as an organisation of individuals based
on the social production of the means of life. He is content to consider
each individual, singly and individually, and to say that there is
democracy and that each of them has equal rights when they each
have the right to vote, to make representations to their representatives,
to a fair trial if they commit an offence against other people and to
legal protection if anyone else commits an offence against them. But
just as it is deceptive to describe institutions in general as democratic
without taking into account the class-controlled institutions which
enable one class to exert an over-riding control of government in its
own interest, so it is deceptive to describe rights in general as equal
without taking into account the class relations which entail inequalities
of rights. The institution of “equalitarian methods of democratic
control” demands ending the unequalitarian control by an exploiting
class, and “progress toward equality” demands ending the inequality
of exploiting and exploited classes. Yet Dr. Popper and others not
only ask us to accept inequality as equality, but warn us that to abolish
it would be to destroy democracy.
2
FREEDOM
I. FREEDOM AND RESTRICTION OF FREEDOM
Passing in the discussion of democracy from the provision of equality
to the provision of freedom, Dr. Popper reminds us of “the well-
known paradox of freedom”, namely, that “the free man . . . may
exercise his freedom, first by defying the law and ultimately by
defying freedom itself and clamouring for a tyrant” (i-OS. 123). He
concludes that “freedom defeats itself if it is unlimited . . . This is
why we demand that the state should Emit freedom to a certain
extent, so that everyone’s freedom is protected by law” (2-OS. 124).
As for Marx, he “never grasped the paradox of freedom, and . . .
never understood the function which state power could and should
perform, in the service of freedom and humanity” (2-OS. 126).
But Marxists would agree with Dr. Popper that “freedom defeats
itself if it is unlimited”. For, as he goes on to say, if everyone is free
to do whatever he likes “a strong man is free to bully one who is
weak and to rob him of his freedom” (2-OS. 124). So if people
together are to enjoy freedom, what they do must be limited by
restrictions and rules. No man should be free to get hold of a club
and beat other people over the head. Nor, Marx adds, should any
man be free to acquire capital and exploit the labour of others. Marxists
agree that there should be laws to stop strong men from bullying
the weak, and they also conclude that there should be laws to stop
exploiters from exploiting labour. To protect freedom, the law must
take his club away from the bully, and also take his private capital
away from the capitalist. Marx in fact grasped “the paradox of
freedom” (“freedom defeats itself if it is unlimited”) with a rather
more sure grasp than Dr. Popper.
It is as obvious to Marxists as it is to Dr. Popper (indeed, one may
think, rather more obvious) that the promotion of human freedom
does not consist in establishing “unlimited freedom” for anyone to do
anything, but consists in establishing the specific freedoms of specific
people to do or not do specific things, and simultaneously in preventing
anyone from hindering them. If freedoms are to be effectively provided
that must be protected. Therefore the assertion of some freedoms
FREEDOM
293
entails the denial of others, since protection entails prohibition. There
is therefore no practical sense in talking about “freedom” unless one
specifies freedom for whom to do what, and unless one is also prepared
to accept prohibition of actions which would hinder these freedoms.
In other words, freedom consists in the provision and protection of
specific freedoms of individuals — in the provision of freedom of
individuals to do or not do certain things, and in the prohibition of
their doing things to hinder each other’s freedoms.
Marxists are sometimes accused of proposing to deny freedom to
individuals in order to dragoon them into courses of action which will
somehow represent collective but not individual freedom. For instance,
individuals will be conscripted to work, each as no more than a cog
in the machine, so that social production of social needs can go freely
forward. But just as collective action which is not the action of indivi-
duals is an absurdity, so is collective freedom which is not the freedom
of individuals — and it is a mockery of individuals too. A free society
is nothing but an association of free individuals, for, as Engels remarked
( Anti-Duhring , Part 3, Chapter 3), “it goes without saying that society
cannot be free unless every individual is free”. Although Dr. Popper
says that Marxism regards individuals as “pawns” and advocates the sub-
ordination of the individual to the collective, he parenthetically admits
that, nevertheless, “Marx was ultimately an individualist” (2-OS. 126).
This does Marx no more than justice. Marxism is concerned to promote
specific freedoms of individuals, which can only be won and protected
by collective action and by the prohibition of whatever hinders them.
The provision of freedom to individuals depends on their social
institutions: so says Dr. Popper, and so also says Marx.
Marxism advocates practical ways and means for establishing
institutions which will ensure that social production will be carried
on with the highest techniques and minimum expenditure of labour,
so as to provide amply for material needs. With these, we need
institutions for education and research, for the sciences and arts, for
individual and group enjoyment of leisure, and institutions of manage-
ment and administration. Such institutions can do the most to make
people free — free from want, so that they can freely enjoy material
necessities and comforts, which is the essential basis for every other
freedom; free to amuse themselves in a variety of ways; free to take
every advantage and benefit they can from the social development of
technology, knowledge and culture, and to contribute to it personally
in every way they are able.
294
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
Marxism advocates establishing institutions to provide these free-
doms, not for some people only, but for everyone. Free institutions
provide freedoms equally for all citizens, and not just for a privileged
few. Indeed, if institutions provided certain freedoms for some and
denied them to others, it is evident that for the latter these would be
institutions not to provide for their freedom but to deny it to them. It is
very obvious, therefore, why demands for the maximum provision of
freedoms should always be demands for equality. Marxism therefore
links freedom with equality.
The institutions through which human freedom may be secured (or,
on the other hand, through which individuals are deprived of freedoms
they might otherwise enjoy) include economic, sports, scientific,
artistic, literary, educational and a host of other types of institution.
But there can be no doubt, and Marxists certainly have never doubted,
that the key institutions are those of government and law, the state
institutions. The state can allow and assist the fullest development of
institutions for freedom, or it can hinder or forbid it; and the govern-
ment policies, the laws and the actions of the enforcers of the law can
either uphold the conditions for individual freedom or can deny them.
From this follows what Dr. Popper calls “the fimction which state
power could or should perform, in the service of freedom and human-
ity”, and which he says Marx never understood.
So in this connection Dr. Popper asks “What do we demand from
the state?” And he says that “the reply of the humanitarian will be ... I
demand protection for my own freedom and for other people’s ... I am
perfectly ready to see my own freedon of action somewhat curtailed
by the state, provided I can obtain protection of that freedom which
remains, since I know that some limitations of my freedom are neces-
sary ... But I demand that the fundamental purpose of the state should
not be lost sight of; I mean, the protection of that freedom which does
not harm other citizens. Thus I demand that the state must limit the
freedom of citizens as equally as possible, and not beyond what is
necessary for achieving an equal limitation of freedom. Something
like this”, Dr. Popper concludes, “will be the demand of the humani-
tarian, of the equalitarian, of the individualist. It is a demand which
permits the social technologist to approach political problems rationally,
i.e. from the point of view of a fairly clear and definite aim” (i-OS.
109-10).
We too are humanitarians, equalitarians and individualists, we
try to approach political problems rationally, and we make demands
FREEDOM
295
upon the state for the furtherance and protection of freedom. Yet, for
some reason or other, Dr. Popper thinks that his rational political
question, “What do we demand from the state?” is posed as an alter-
native to such rational sociological questions as “What is the state,
what is its true nature, how did it originate?” He says that Marxism
asks such “historicist” questions instead of asking “What do we demand
from the state?” (i-OS. 190). But the fact that, as Marxism claims to
demonstrate, the state originated out of the protection of class interests,
and the capitalist state protects capitalist interests, does not preclude our
asking ourselves “What do we demand from the state?” and concluding
that one thing we demand is the protection of certain freedoms. To
have asked and answered the other factual or so-called “historicist”
questions does not prevent us asking “What do we demand from the
state?”, but what it does do is to show us what we are up against in
fighting to win our demand.
Indeed, it is merely hot air to proclaim “We demand that the state
should protect freedom”, unless we are prepared to make what Dr.
Popper is pleased to call an “historicist” inquiry into the state in its actual
developments up to the present day, to examine in what ways it falls
short of protecting freedom, or hinders people from winning their
freedom by protecting the freedom of others to exploit them, and to
work out what can be done to get a state which will in the fullest
sense protect freedom because it provides the necessary conditions
for it.
Dr. Popper further contends that if the state is to protect freedom,
democratic institutions are necessary. Even without the benefit of Dr.
Popper’s advice, this was Marx’s contention too. For those who want
to ensure that their freedom is protected must see to it themselves, and
not rely on protectors over whom they themselves have no control. If
the masses of humanity are to live free from exploitation and free from
want, they must see to it that those in charge of management and
administration manage and administer accordingly — and that requires
“equalitarian methods of democratic control”. To help demonstrate
that this is so, Dr. Popper adds a good deal of useful argument to the
effect that while uncontrolled power in the hands of exceptionally
benevolent despots may occasionally be exerted to protect certain
limited freedoms, the protection is at best extremely insecure except to
the extent controls are instituted to ensure that it continues.
But while Marxists agree with Dr. Popper that democratic insti-
tutions are necessary to protect freedom, Dr. Popper does not agree
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
296
with Marxism. For Marxism, he says, belittles the role of democracy
even while claiming to be in favour of it — and from belittling democ-
racy Marxism goes on in practice to try to overthrow it altogether. It
calls the exercise of democratic rights “mere formal freedom”, and
from this goes on to propose supplanting it with “real” freedom. But
without this “mere formal freedom” whatever other freedom Marxism
proposes cannot be freedom at all.
“What Marxists describe disparagingly as ‘mere formal freedom*,”
says Dr. Popper, is in fact “the basis of everything else. This ‘mere
formal freedom*, i.e. democracy, the right of the people to judge and
dismiss their government, is the only known device by which we can
try to protect ourselves against the misuse of political power; it is the
control of the rulers by the ruled. And since political power can control
economic power, political democracy is also the only means for the
control of economic power by the ruled. Without democratic con-
trol, there can be no earthly reason why any government should not
use its political and economic power for purposes very different from
the protection of the freedom of its citizens** (2-OS. 127).
But where and when did Marxists say that democratic control was
not necessary for the protection of freedom? “It is the fimdamental
role of ‘formal freedom* which is overlooked by Marxists**, Dr. Popper
continues to fulminate, “who think that formal democracy is not
enough and wish to supplement it by what they usually call ‘economic
democracy’, a vague and utterly superficial phrase . . .**. But stop, Dr.
Popper has been carried a bit too far by the exuberance of his verbosity.
For it is not Marxists who usually talk vaguely and superficially about
“economic democracy”, but Fabians and such-like “vague and utterly
superficial” persons.
By “economic democracy” is presumably meant measures of public
control (or sometimes it means more narrowly “workers* control”)
over the management of economic enterprises, just as by “political
democracy” is meant measures of public control over government. So
far as freedom is concerned, both are self-evidently in the same sense
“forms” or “mere forms”. And^to call them “forms” is only to call
them by their right name, not to “disparage” them. The freedom to
vote, and to take part in instituted control, whether in general concerns
of government or in particular items of economic management,
appertains to the form of democratic control of institutions, which is
necessary, as the form of control, in order that through the operation
of those institutions people may enjoy the freedom associated with
FREEDOM 297
the exercise of their faculties and abilities, and the satisfaction of their
needs.
Dr. Popper himself continually talks about such freedoms as ‘ ‘free-
dom from want” and “freedom from exploitation”, and says that these
are the freedoms which democratic institutions should be designed to
protect. In the context of freedom there is nothing “vague and super-
ficial” in the use of such antithetical terms as “form” and “substance”,
or “formal” and “real”; and it is a perfectly proper and precise use of
language to say that formal freedoms, such as freedom to vote,
appertain to the form of control of the working of institutions within
which such real or substantial freedoms as “freedom from want” and
“freedom from exploitation” may be realised. Marxism does not
“disparage” mere “formal freedom”. But what it does say is that we
must not let ourselves be tricked into accepting the form without the
substance.
It is perfectly true that “formal democracy is not enough”, whether
it is “political democracy” alone or is supplemented by a measure of
“economic democracy”. Marxism tells the workers that to have the
right to vote and trade union rights is not enough; these rights must be
protected ; but it is not enough to protect them, we should also use them ;
we should also seek to win, and then to protect, all that substantial
freedom which goes with “freedom from want” and “freedom from
exploitation”. It is not Marxists who “overlook the fundamental role
of ‘formal freedom* ” but Dr. Popper who overlooks it — for he over-
looks that the role of “formal freedom* * is to enable us to establish and
protect real freedom.
Dr. Popper says that “the view of the state which I have sketched
here may be called ‘protectionism***, and proceeds to explain that “the
protectionist theory of the state** is not a theory about the origin of the
state, nor about “the essential nature** of the state, “nor does it say
anything about the way states actually function. It formulates a
political demand , a proposal for the adoption of a certain policy** — and
that demand and that proposal is that the state should protect freedom,
and that everything it does to this end should be democratically
controlled. It may perhaps be thought an odd use of words to call a
demand or proposal “a theory*’, since for most people a theory is
something on which demands and proposals may be based. However,
Dr. Popper goes on to say that theories of the state must always “be
translated, as it were, into the language of demands or proposals for
political action before they can be seriously discussed. Otherwise, end-
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
298
less discussions of a merely verbal character are unavoidable” (i-OS.
m-12).
We can certainly agree that theories of the state should be “translated
into the language of demands or proposals for political action before
they can be seriously discussed”, and that unless such a translation can
be done theories are not worth serious discussion anyway. But if we
are going to put forward the demand that the state should protect
something, as a serious proposal for political action, we should at least
have some idea as to whether the state is protecting it already, if so
how effectively, or whether it is protecting something else. For political
action has to start from an existing situation, and a proposal for it can
hardly be serious unless it includes an estimate of the situation. The
Marxist theory of the state can be and has been “translated into the
language of political action”. What Dr. Popper deplores as its “ele-
ments of historicism or essentialism” is that it not merely proposes
political action but proposes it on the basis of an analysis of how things
are and how they have come to be like it. Yet if political action aims
at remedying an evil, it is as well to understand something of the evil
it is proposed to remedy.
So far as “protectionism” is concerned, Marxists agree that the
state does fulfil a protective role, and we put forward political demands
and proposals which concern its protective role. In that sense we are
“protectionists” too, only we differ from Dr. Popper in that we think it
necessary to examine “the way states actually function” in order to
discuss seriously the way we propose to get them to function.
According to the way Marxism interprets the historical evidence,
states came into being as a result of the development of pfivate property
and of classes, and have always fulfilled a primary function of protecting
property and property relations. Exploiting classes have made them-
selves ruling classes by means of the forms of institutional control they
have exerted. This remains true of the ruling class in capitalist coun-
tries today. As I have already pointed out more than once, the “equali-
tarian methods of democratic control” which have been won in some
capitalist countries are still strictly limited. The right to vote, the right
to take part in political organisations, the trade union rights, and the
rights of free speech and assembly, are limited and counteracted by the
over-riding control which the capitalist class institutionally exerts over
the organs of government, including not only the legislature and
executive, but also the organs of information, education and propa-
ganda. This control is exerted to protect capitalist property and the
FREEDOM
299
freedom of capital to accumulate surplus-value and seek profitable
investment.
As a result, it is the same with the state today as it always has been:
it protects property. There are various freedoms which individuals seek —
freedoms to take part in the institutions of democratic control, and
freedoms to dispose of their property and to develop their physical
and mental capacities. The capitalist state actually allows and protects,
and at the same time curtails and disallows these individual freedoms
in so far as it accords with the preservation and development of the
capitalist forms of property it protects. These are all facts, highly
relevant to any “protectionist theory of the state”, which Dr. Popper
overlooks.
2. FREEDOM, RIGHTS AND SECURITY
Recognising “that freedom must be limited”, Dr. Popper says that
“it is certainly difficult to determine exactly the degree of freedom that
can be left to the citizen without endangering that freedom whose
protection is the task of the state. But,” he continues “that something
like an approximate determination of that degree is possible is proved
by experience, i.e. by the existence of democratic states” (i-OS. no).
For this purpose he concludes that “the state should be considered as a
society for the prevention of crime, i.e. of aggression”. For when the
state is considered in that light, “the approximate degree of freedom
that can be left to the citizens” is readily determined as a result of
experience. To illustrate the practical principle on which such “approxi-
mate determination” is made, he quotes “the famous story of the
hooligan who protested that, being a free citizen, he could move his
fist in any direction he liked; whereupon the judge wisely replied:
‘The freedom of movement of your fists is limited by the position of
your neighbour’s nose’” (i-OS. 111).
No doubt. But even so it may be doubted whether the existence of
democratic states has yet proved that they can always readily learn from
experience how exactly to determine the limits of freedom. Experience
has not yet taught the democratic American state that the freedom of
its pilots to drop bombs should be limited by the position of its neigh-
bour’s women and children. As “a society for the prevention of aggres-
sion” this democratic state may be deemed a failure. Experience has
not even taught some of the state legislatures that the right of their own
children to education should not be limited by the colour of their skins.
Furthermore, there is a difficulty in determining exactly what “that
300
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
freedom” is “whose protection is the task of the state”. The American
state, for example, considers that it must at all costs protect the freedom
to invest capital — and that is why, far from considering itself guilty of
aggression against some of its neighbours, it considers them guilty of
aggression. Again, is the democratic state to protect the freedom of
managements of private enterprises to declare workers redundant when
they cannot make a profit out of them? If so, then this automatically
curtails the freedom of workers to earn their living and contribute their
working capacity to the social production of the means of life. For this
right of private capital contradicts what in socialist countries is con-
sidered a fundamental right, the right to work.
Dr. Popper’s view about freedom and its limitations, and the role of
the state, is summed up in his demand that the state should protect
“that freedom which does not harm other citizens”. This is recognisably
the same liberal view as was put forward by J. S. Mill On Liberty , when
he said that the state should not interfere with the freedom of indi-
viduals to conduct their affairs and dispose of their property as they
please except in so far as experience showed was necessary to stop them
from harming one another. But the fact is that the general concept of
“harm” is by itself, in Dr. Popper’s phrase, far “too vague and utterly
superficial” to serve as the key concept for deciding in what ways a
democratic state should protect and should restrict freedom.
A practical difficulty in the interpretation of Mill’s practical prin-
ciple has always arisen over the decision of what sort of harm, and
what degree or quantity of harm, should be done before the state is
justified in interfering. People can and do harm one another in a
variety of ways, so that if the liberal principle were taken literally it
would suggest an intolerable amount of interference by the state in the
private lives of citizens. This very point was touched on by W. S.
Gilbert in The Mikado : in Gilbertian Japan flirting was made an indict-
able offence, since it was judged to lead to harm being done to innocent
maidens. As we have seen, Dr. Popper maintains that “experience” will
always show democratic states where to draw the line ; and long before
Dr. Popper began his elucidations, liberals, being commonsensical folk,
were trying to draw some distinction between “public” and “private”
life, with the proviso that the state should let the latter alone except in
extreme cases. They likewise tried to draw some sort of balance
between, on the one hand, the harm which could be done by permitting
certain sorts of activity and, on the other hand, the harm done by
interfering. For the liberal principle contains the implicit assumption
FREEDOM
301
that state interference, being a restriction of liberty, is in itself harmful,
and so should be practised only when a demonstrably greater harm
would result from not interfering. Thus in a television discussion
got up by the B.B.C. in the summer of 1966 the question was debated
whether pornographic literature (prevalent in floods in England)
ought to be banned — with one rather diffident and academic gentleman
from Oxford arguing that it ought to be banned because of the harm it
does, and all the other representatives of a free culture that it ought not
to be banned because of the harm done by any form of censorship of
publications. In political and economic debate, J. S. Mill's principle was
used to argue the case for laissez faire ; but is is now generally agreed,
and J. S. Mill himself was one of the first to argue the case, that a
limited amount of state interference is desirable in economic affairs.
But if socialists try to argue that any form of exploitation of man by
man does harm, the counter-argument is that the state interference
needed to stop it would do much more harm.
The hidden reason why Dr. Popper and others think that neverthe-
less experience in democratic states shows quite clearly what to allow
and not to allow, in the light of their formula, is that they take it for
granted that there should always be private ownership of means of
production, buying and selling of labour power, and private appropria-
tion of the products of socialised labour. On that assumption, experi-
ence does indeed indicate the advisability of imposing certain restraints
and not imposing others. But this is not at all the same thing as
restraining people from harming one another.
To determine the limits of freedom to be allowed by a democratic
state is therefore not so easy nor so uncontroversial a task as Dr.
Popper tries to make out. For what limits freedom is not simply the
decision, wise or otherwise, of the legislature, which decides to allow or
disallow individuals the freedom to do this or that. The laws must allow
or disallow freedoms in accordance with the rights which go with
different forms of property, so that what finally decides the limits of
freedom is the institutions of property . The question is, shall the state
legislate for the existing forms of property and continue to protect
them, or shall it, on the contrary, legislate against them, promote the
institution of other forms of property, and protect these other forms
instead? This is the difficult question which has to be decided in order
to determine the limits of freedom. And its decision invitably involves
a struggle of classes for control of the state t and to preserve or change state
institutions .
302
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
Dr. Popper has correctly stressed the necessary connection between
provision of freedom and limitation of freedom. And it is not difficult
to see that this implies also, in practical discussion, a necessary connec-
tion between the uses of the terms “freedom/’ “rights”, “law” and
“security”. The freedoms to be provided correspond with rights — every-
one is to be free to exercise and enjoy his rights; rights are embodied in
law; and the enforcement of law brings security for the free exercise and
enjoyment of rights. Thomas Hobbes was quite correct when he said
that unless men’s actions were governed by social rules effectively en-
forced, the lives of men would be “nasty, brutish and short”; it would
not be a condition of freedom. As Dr. Popper’s wise judge recognised,
a hooligan or thief is the enemy of men’s freedom, for he attacks their
security. Similarly with military or economic aggression by states, in
international affairs. And this, of course, is why Dr. Popper says that a
democratic state should work “for the prevention of crime, i.e. of
aggression”. Marxists entirely agree with that precept. But what Dr.
Popper overlooks when defining “the function which state power could
and should perform, in the service of freedom and humanity”, and
the recognition of which made Marx understand this function rather
better than Dr. Popper subsequently understood it, is that states always
have to protect property rights and the security of property . It is therefore
important to decide what sort of property rights are to be protected,
and what sort of security is thereby to be provided.
There are certain basic sorts of security which Marxism demands,
voicing in these demands the immediate interest of the working class
in modern society and at the same time stating the necessary condition
for the unimpeded further development of social production. We
demand for everyone the security of being able to find work to do, so
as to contribute to social production and, as Marx put it in Capital
(Vol 3, Chapter 48), “achieving this with the least expenditure of energy
and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human
nature”. We demand for everyone the security of the use and enjoy-
ment of personal property. And we demand for everyone security in
conditions that will enable him to develop his capacities for life and
happiness, both in his own person and in his personal relations with
others.
This, it may be said, is a rather tall order, human nature being what it
is. Many argue that it is of no use demanding institutions which would
provide such social security, because people as individuals are by
nature far too bad or stupid ever to make them work. However,
FREEDOM
303
Marxism opposes this kind of cynicism about human nature so long as
there actually exist institutions which by their nature as institutions
prevent such social security, whether individuals are by nature bad or
stupid or not. And such are the institutions of capitalism.
So long as the state protects capitalist property relations it must be
concerned, whatever democratic demands are placed upon it, to
provide as much security as it can for the accumulation and investment
of capital, and for individuals, whether individually or through corpor-
ate organisations, to enjoy freedom to accumulate and invest capital
and to live on the surplus values accruing to them from the exploitation
of the labour of others.
This demonstrably goes counter to providing security of work. For
employment depends on the vagaries of the crisis-ridden process of
the circulation of capital; and so far as concerns working with “the
least expenditure of energy and under conditions most worthy of their
human nature”, the workers find progress in this respect impeded.
Equally it goes counter to security of personal property. Although
the state and the law protect personal property, one’s security of per-
sonal property remains contingent on the insecurity of one’s job or
one’s shares. The worker who has managed to acquire various per-
sonal possessions, and even to buy a few shares, is in danger of losing
the lot through inflation or unemployment.
As for the more intangible goods of life and happiness and personal
relations, it is a well-known fact, extensively demonstrated in socio-
logical writings and explored in art and literature, that their sources are
poisoned by the free-for-all competition and the monopolising of
resources, the “I’m all right, Jack” and “dog eats dog” ethic, of capitalist
society.
By instituting social ownership of means of production we can
institute social planning of production to employ available resources
and labour to meet human needs. And the state which abolishes the
rights of private capital and sets out to protect public property in
means of production can then protect everyone’s right to benefit from
social production and, by the social planning of production, can seek to
establish and protect social security for everyone for work, personal
property, and the pursuit of happiness.
The freedom and equality which socialism can thus secure can be
secured only be restricting and denying certain freedoms, as well as
removing inequalities. Marxists have always said so, demonstrating
therein a perfectly sound grasp of the so-called “paradox of freedom”
304
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
and of ‘‘the function which state power could and should perform, in
the service of freedom and humanity”.
The sort of restriction of freedom which is exemplified by preven-
ting fists from coming into contact with noses goes without saying —
Dr. Popper himself agrees that that is “wise”. To secure freedom and
equality based on social ownership of means of production demands
also prohibiting private enterprises which make profits out of buying
the use of labour-power and selling the products. It demands taking
away the freedom of individuals, singly or in corporate organisation,
to own such enterprises, or to buy and gamble with shares in them, or
to display their initiative and competitive spirit by directing them. It
demands taking away the freedom of one man to exploit another’s
labour. It likewise demands the removal of all those institutional means,
and the blocking up of all those corridors of power, through which a
minority exploiting class can contrive to maintain its influence and
control over government. All the rights claimed by representatives of
that class to positions of influence and power are forfeited. And this
forfeiture includes the rights to own and dictate the policies of news-
papers and other means of propaganda, to control radio and television
networks, to own and run publishing businesses and art galleries, to
direct the organisation of science, and to exert censorship over what is
taught in the schools.
In such an undertaking of restricting freedom to secure freedom
there is no doubt that, as Dr. Popper warns us, “many mistakes will
be made”. And in fact many mistakes have been made already, and are
still being made, by socialist states — hampered as they have been both
by lack of democratic traditions and by an initially backward economy.
But whatever mistakes have been made, or will be made in the future,
they have at least got rid of property relations which block the road to
security and freedom and established basic institutional forms of
property and government within which the road ahead is open. And
experience will show, and is showing, how to correct the mistakes.
3. FREEDOM FROM EXPLOITATION
When “freedom” is reckoned a social and political good, and preserv-
ing and winning it set as a social and political aim, what do we mean
by it? To explain what we mean it is necessary, not (as Dr. Popper has
already explained in another context) to dig for and uncover the hidden
“essence” of what the word stands for, but simply to state the impli-
FREEDOM
305
cations of the uses of the word. If that is understood, then it is evident
that when people say they want to be “free” they imply that they want
either to cast off some constraint from which they are suffering or else
to prevent some constraint from being imposed on them. Thus to be
free implies to be free from constraint .
Accordingly, Dr. Popper considers that the object of political action
to promote freedom is to free people, so far as it can be done, from the
constraints imposed upon them when they are ordered about and
coerced by representatives of instituted power over which they have
little or no control. So the political objective of freedom is realised
by instituting democracy and self-government.
There can be no doubt that this objective does correspond to most
people’s actually expressed aspirations for freedom. For most people, to
be “free” includes to enjoy democracy and self-government; and so
long as they remain deprived of their own democratic institutions
people do generally mean by winning “freedom” very little else than
winning these institutions for themselves. As Dr. Popper has said, it is
recognised that once democracy and self-government are won people
may fail to make good use of them. But the first consideration in fighting
for freedom is to win democracy and self-government .
As against this it is sometimes argued that, according to Marxism, it
is a mere “bourgeois” or “liberal” illusion to suppose that “freedom”
implies freedom from constraint. But the concept of freedom, as
understood by everyone who aspires to freedom and refrains from
using the word in tricky senses designed to cheat people by foisting on
them something they do not want by denoting it by the word they
customarily use for something they do want, does bear the implica-
tion that to gain freedom is always to throw off some constraint imposed
on us. And if Marxism disagrees with “bourgeois liberalism” ’it is not
because we advocate imposing all sorts of constraints on people which
liberalism urges them to throw off, but because we advocate getting
rid of constraints which liberalism is quite content to accept.
Dr. Popper’s idea that “we demand that the state protects that free-
dom which does not harm other citizens” leads him, like other liberals,
frequently to argue as though the constraints placed on freedom were
only political, that is, only impositions by the state. You have your
freedom curtailed when the police come after you — and Dr. Popper
insists that that should be done only to stop you harming anyone else.
Apart from what the state, or officers of the state, may do to curtail our
freedom, we are free.
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
306
But quite apart from such constraints on freedom as may be imposed
by the state and the police, is not our freedom to do as we please, and to
enjoy and cultivate the advantages which individuals can gain from the
amenities of civilisation, very severely constrained by long hours of
work, arduous, dull and unrewarding jobs, lack of good food and living
conditions — and even more constrained when the individual cannot
find work? Is it not limited, too, by lack of education, and by people
being subjected to a multitude of propaganda influences which
stultify therr minds, condition them to believe what they are told, and
lead them to believe they are living well when in fact they are only
grabbing what they can get in a competitive scramble with their
fellows? All these limitations exist. But because they, or even worse
ones, have always existed they are taken for granted, as natural features
of the human condition. So long as techniques were comparatively
primitive such conditions were unavoidable, and to do away with them
was not within the range of practical politics. But it is within the range
now — and Marxism is the working out of the theory and practice of
of such politics.
For that matter, it is equally true that institutions of democratic
control, in which the whole population to some extent participates,
and not merely those privileged by owning property, were not within
the range of practical politics in earlier times. Such institutions of
freedom have fairly recently begun to be established. Liberals, enthusi-
astic as they rightly are about the gains of freedom made by democracy,
and prepared, as they say, to fight to the death to preserve even such
limited items of democracy as we have so far got (and Marxists join
them in this), make the mistake of thinking that because controlling
the power of rulers to dictate to citizens is a necessary condition for
the citizens’ freedom it is the whole of their freedom. It is nothing of the
sort. For even when we have gained a measure of control over how
far we may be dictated to by the decrees of rulers, that is to say, have
gained political freedom, we may still be relatively unfree, and under
heavy constraint, on account of our production relations and of the
whole way in which we organise social production and the distribution
of the means of life and enjoyment of life. Liberals accept this constraint
and this unfreedom. Marxists seek the ways of ending it.
Marx and Engels were of opinion that, as a result of socialist owner-
ship and management of social means of production, and the restric-
tions which that would imply on the freedom of individuals to own
means of production and buy and sell labour-power and its products,
FREEDOM
307
an organisation of social production could be achieved on the basis of
which all individuals could enjoy a freedom they cannot enjoy in any
society based on the exploitation of labour. And in Anti-Duhring (Part
3, Chapter 3) Engels proceeded to spell out the conditions for such
individual freedom, and in what it consists.
The main thing, he explained, is that “in making itself the master of
all the means of production, in order to use them in accordance with a
social plan, society puts an end to the former subjection of men to their
own means of production”. Thus “productive labour” is no longer “a
means to the subjection of men”.
In order that the human race should exist at all, and that anyone
should be able to live, let alone live freely, productive labour has got
to be done. The ways in which it has become “a means to the subjec-
tion of men” are all, so Engels gives us to understand, consequences of
the social division of labour. First, individuals have become tied to
particular jobs in such a way that all opportunities for development of
abilities and personality, and for enjoyment of goods, have been con-
ditioned and restricted by the job to which each individual is tied: thus
the peasant is tied to the land, the worker to the bench, and the mana-
ging director to the board room, all being equally in a state of “sub-
jection to their own means of production”. Second, some individuals
live by exploiting the labour of others, so that the latter are tied down
by having to work for the benefit and under the direction of the former.
Third, individuals are compelled to devote the greater part of their
energies to socially necessary labour, with little time or energy left to
devote to avocations freely chosen by themselves.
Engels argued that “the present development of productive forces is
already adequate” for us to do away with all this subjection. Starting
with the third item, he pointed out that the social development of
modern productive forces can now “reduce the time required for
labour, with every individual taking his share, to what on our present
conceptions would be a small amount”. So everyone can be given
plenty of time and opportunity to live a good life as he chooses.
Second, all exploitation of man by man can be abolished. And third,
it is possible with modern productive forces to do away altogether with
the former crippling effects on individuals of the division of labour.
“Modem industry, indeed, compels society,” Marx had written in
Capital (Vol 1, Chapter 14, section 9), “under penalty of death, to
replace the detail worker of today, crippled by life-long repetition of
one and the same operation and thus reduced to the mere fragment of a
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
308
man, by the fully developed individual, fit for a variety of labours,
ready to face any change of production, and to whom the different
social functions he performs are but so many modes of giving free
scope to his own natural and acquired powers/’ In particular, the
development of techniques and of people’s mastery of them can end the
two greatest divisions which impose restrictions and inequalities upon
individuals — the divisions between mental and manual labour, and
between town and countryside.
So, said Engels, the individual freedom which people can get as a
result of socialist ownership of means of production is the correlative
of the removal of these forms of subjection. What it amounts to, he
said, is “giving each individual the opportunity to develop and exercise
all his faculties, physical and mental, in all directions”.
Marx explained the same point, but perhaps with greater eloquence
and less attention to detail, at the end of the third volume of Capital
(Chapter 48).
“The realm of freedom actually begins,” he wrote, “only where
labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations
ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere
of actual material production. Just as the savage must wrestle with
nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must
civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all
possible modes of production. With his development this realm of
physical necessity expands as a result of his wants ; but, at the same
time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase.
Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated
producers, rationally regulating their interchange with nature, bringing
it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the
blind forces of nature ; and achieving this with the least expenditure of
energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their
human nature. But it nonetheless remains a realm of necessity. Beyond
it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself,
the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only
with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-
day is its basic prerequisite.”
Thus Marx and Engels both made very clear that what they regarded
as freedom — a goal worth striving for, and which could be realised
only on the basis of social ownership of means of production — con-
sisted in each individual enjoying equally the possibility “to develop
and exercise all his faculties”, and to engage in “that development of
FREEDOM
309
human energy which is an end in itself” and which is done, not because
one has to, but because one chooses to. The necessary condition for this,
they explained, was something which could only be realised by social
action — the fullest development of social production on the basis of
social ownership of means of production and planning, overcoming
the crippling effects of division of labour, abolishing all exploitation of
man by man, and reducing to the minimum the hours of necessary-
labour for each individual and the individual energy expended in
them.
As Marx suggested in his Critique of the Gotha Programme , individuals
would then hardly begrudge the time spent in social labour, under
orders within a social production plan, for they could recognise that
work is “the prime necessity of life”. Moreover, as Engels pointed out,
with the fullest use and development of techniques “labour will become
a pleasure instead of a burden”.
It is for these reasons that Marxists maintain that it is only by the
institution of socialism that men can make a real beginning to the
achievement of a free society. For as Engels said, it is only after “the
seizure of the means of production by society” that “in a sense man
finally cuts himself off from the animal world, leaves the conditions of
animal existence behind him and enters conditions which are really
human. The conditions of existence forming man’s environment,
which up to now have dominated man, at this point pass under the
dominion and control of man, who now for the first time becomes the
real conscious master of nature, because and in so far as he has become
master of his own social organisation. ... It is only from this point that
men, with full consciousness, will fashion their own history; it is only
froih this point that the social causes set in motion by men will have,
predominantly and in constantly increasing measure, the effects willed
by men. It is humanity’s leap from the realm of necessity into the realm
of freedom” (. Anti-Duhring , Part 3, Chapter 2).
To achieve such freedom as this, not only must more effective forms of
democratic control of rulers be introduced but social relations must be changed .
Denying this, the liberals not only justify political constraints associated
with the existing capitalist relations as necessary to prevent harm, but
also accept the powers and privileges of the existing ruling class, and
the subjection of the majority of people to the cramping conditions of
exploited labour, as normal features of the working of a democratic
political system. So far as freedom is concerned, their horizons are
extremely limited.
3io
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
It is, indeed, always important to remember that what is called
“liberalism” is in fact often far from liberal. Liberalism in social and
political theory is often as hidebound and stuffy as the great Liberal
Party itself.
Liberal myosis as regards the bounds of freedom is due to their
accepting capitalist relations as those within which human freedom
must be confined. Dr. Popper talks, indeed, of “freedom from ex-
ploitation”. But, for him, it is only unorganised workers, who lack
bargaining power against unscrupulous employers, who get themselves
exploited; when there is organisation, and wages and hours are settled
by collective bargaining (or, perhaps we should now say, by the in-
comes policy decided on by a democratically elected government),
there is already an end to exploitation. On such a view, freedom does
indeed seem to be in the main a matter only of political and economic
democracy. The essential freedoms are seen as freedom of individual
enterprise, freedom for individuals with a common interest to organise
for the promotion of their interest and to bargain with other interests,
freedom both by individual initiative and by collective organisation to
better one's condition. But yet within the capitalist relations the utmost
betterment that can be hoped for is only a little easing of the constraints
of economic necessity and the demands of one’s job. And in these
conditions people naturally see as objectives of all their efforts only the
grabbing for themselves of such satisfactions as they can get amid the
free-for-all, and grab and consume these the more greedily because
their possession of them is constantly being thwarted and threatened
by the economic crises, and crises in political and international relations,
which capitalism engenders and the onset of which no-one can control.
Such, for liberalism, is the inescapable human lot.
Marx, as Dr. Popper admits, saw all these evils of capitalism
clearly enough — but he saw beyond them, towards how to overcome
them. He did not disparage the political freedoms associated with
democracy. On the contrary, he advocated enlarging them be re-
moving the political and economic controls of the ruling class. But he
saw clearly that political power must be used to change social relations in
order to set men free — that is to say, to make men individually free on the
basis of their co-operation in social techniques to produce the means for
satisfaction, and collectively secure by their control over their means of
livelihood and their own social organisation.
The account rendered by Marx of freedom, and of the constraints
which must be removed to win it, is of profound importance because it
FREEDOM
311
sets before us an aim of political action. Dr. Popper is very scornful
about aims and ideals because, he says, the object of political action
should not be to realise ideals but to remove evils. However, Marxists
fight harder than most to remove evils because that is the practical
way of fighting to realise ideals. One’s idea of what is an evil to be
removed can never be dissociated from one’s idea of what good is to be
got by removing it. For if one lacks the conception of what good is to
be got by removing evils one may well think it not worth the trouble
of removing them, or even fail to see them as evils at all. By demon-
strating something of the full potential scope of human freedom Marx-
ism urges us to go on removing what blocks our freedom. And while
it urges that we value and defend the freedoms already won, it does not
teach us that in winning them we have won all the freedom we want
or could get.
In capitalist conditions, therefore, Marxism urges that we should
organise to protect the democratic freedoms already won, or to win
them if they are still lacking ; that we should organise to defend our
standards of life and to improve them ; and that we should organise to
deprive the ruling class of its powers to protect its own privileges at
the expense of the freedoms of the majority, and, having done so,
institute socialist relations of production. And when socialism is won,
Marxism urges that we should go on working for the conditions of
individual freedom , defined not simply in terms of democratic rights,
though those must be established where they are lacking, but defined
also in terms of conditions of work “worthy of human nature”, and
of the production of plenty “with the least expenditure of energy”, so
that “that development of human energy which is an end in itself. . .
can blossom forth”.
It is a very well-known fact today that under socialist governments,
in the first fifty years since the first was established, people have lacked
many conditions of freedom, even some which they have got in
capitalist countries, not only because of unavoidable economic and
political difficulties, but because of misconceived policies of socialist
governments. But whether all who hold office in socialist countries are
as yet aware of it or not, Marxism presents to the whole great move-
ment of peoples in revolt against exploitation their goal of freedom,
their conception of freedom in terms of which they can continue to
judge what has still to be done to establish free institutions.
4
312
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
4. FREEDOM AND NECESSITY
Dr. Popper quotes some parts of the observations by Marx and
Engels about individual freedom and a free society quoted in the last
section. And he then comments that “as far as I am able to see” Marx
“followed Hegel’s famous equation of freedom with spirit, in so far as
he believed that we can be free only as spiritual beings” (2-OS. 103).
This seems a surprising interpretation of Marx’s view, even for
Wonderland. But, continues Dr. Popper, Marx described all that
pertains to material life, material conditions, and the production of the
material means of life, as “a realm of necessity”, and said that “true
freedom” only begins “beyond it”. So Marx evidently supposed that
true freedom can come only in so far as we “emancipate ourselves
entirely from the necessities of our metabolism”, For Marx, in fact,
just as for “any Christian dualist”, freedom consists in “the emancipa-
tion from the flesh”. And Engels expressed the same concept when he
wrote that, to win freedom, man must “cut himself off from the animal
world”.
Of course, Dr. Popper adds, Marx and Engels knew well enough that
we could never achieve one hundred per cent “emancipation from the
flesh”. So what they advocated was simply that we should spend as
little time and energy as possible on fleshly concerns, so as to leave all
the rest for “true freedom” (2-OS. 103-5). He supposes that Marx
regarded human metabolism, our material existence, “the flesh”, as
unavoidable limitations on our freedom from which we should try to
emancipate ourselves. Alas, we can never emancipate ourselves entirely,
and so we are always forced to devote a certain amount of attention
to material necessities.
The view which Dr. Popper tries to foist onto Marx that “we can be
free only as spiritual beings”, can justifiably be regarded, as Dr. Popper
regards it, as not merely nonsense but pernicious nonsense. He tends to
call any such nonsense “Hegelian”, regardless of whether Hegel
actually propounded it or not. But this view is in fact considerably
older than Hegel, since it is to be found rather forcibly expressed in
writings attributed to Saint Paul. The pernicious practical implication
hidden behind its high-sounding spiritualistic phraseology is that
because the body limits and fetters the freedom of the spirit it is as well
to chasten the body in order to free the spirit. Thus the view that “true
freedom” is “spiritual” can be (and often has been) used to justify all
kinds of oppression and cruelty in the name of “true freedom”.
FREEDOM
313
Dr. Popper has already warned us that the practical outcome of the
Marxist advocacy of revolution as the means for securing freedom from
exploitation can only be tyranny. But now he has shown how Marx
and Engels tried to cover up this unpleasant fact with a load of non-
sense about ‘‘true freedom”.
The idea that only “spirit” is free, whereas “the flesh” is unfree,
which Dr. Popper rather arbitrarily ascribes to Hegel and still more
arbitrarily to Marx, has become associated in modem times with certain
philosophical arguments about freedom and causality.
Put in its simplest terms, the argument that “we can be free only as
spiritual beings” goes like this. Material events have causes and take
place in accordance with causal laws. In so far as we are material
organisms, therefore, we are subject to causal laws, so that if the cause
of an action is present the action necessarily follows as the effect, and if
the cause is not present the action does not follow. If the cause is
present there is therefore nothing we, as mere material organisms
existing in a material environment, can do to stop the effect from
following; and if the cause is not present, there is nothing we can do to
bring the effect about. In either case we have no choice, no freedom in
the matter. Hence if we are in any way free in what we do, it can only be
as spiritual beings, because there is some spiritual principle in us which
acts independently of the chain of causation in material processes.
The answer to this argument is pretty obvious, to such an extent that
it has today become even a commonplace in philosophy. So far from
causality and causal law precluding our being able to choose to do
something and then to do it, it is the necessary condition for such free
action on our part. It is only because causes produce effects, and in so
far as we know what effects given causes will produce, that we can
decide on a course of action and carry it out. For if we could never
know what causes produced what effects, how could we possibly
deliberate on any course of action, or embark on any undertaking
whatever? Men are material organisms and, as such, our activities and
the effects of our activities are subject to causal laws. But that does not
imply that we can only be free in our choice of activities if there
exists some part of us which is free from the chain of material causality
On the contrary, when we know what causes will produce what
effects, that is the cause of our freely producing such effects as we choose.
Professor Ryle, of Oxford, has illustrated this line of argument by
examples from the free play of games. He pointed out (in The Concept
of Mind) that the fact that both billiard balls and billiard players are
3 H
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
subject to the laws of mechanics does not prohibit the free play of
billiards but is its necessary condition. “The billiard player asks for no
special indulgence from the laws of physics any more than he does
from the rules of billiards. Why should he? They do not force his hand.”
That players exercise freedom in pushing billiard balls where they
want them to go does not imply that the players are “spiritual beings”,
nor that to play billiards well “we must emancipate ourselves from the
necessities of our metabolism”. With that admirable facility for stating
the obvious which is characteristic of the school of philosophy to
which he belongs, Professor Ryle further pointed out how baseless is
the assumption that “a golfer cannot at once conform to the laws of
ballistics and obey the rules of golf and play with elegance and skill”.
It is the same in more serious affairs as in these examples of games. In
so far as an effect follows from our own deliberate action, rather than
from external causes independent of our deliberations, we may be said
to be responsible for it — it was our own choice of action that brought
it about. And in so far as we have learned from experience what to do
in order to bring about one effect rather than another, we have made
ourselves free to act upon and realise our own purposes, and so “eman-
cipated ourselves” from conditions in which what happens to us, and
what happens as the effect of causes we have set in motion, depends not
on ourselves but on external forces beyond our control.
Understanding all this, Marx and Engels did not regard material
existence and its necessities as limitations on what, without them,
would be our freedom as “spiritual beings”. Obviously, since man is a
material and not a spiritual being, his freedom is that of a material
and not of a spiritual being. His material existence is not a limitation on
his freedom, but its condition. For example, breathing and having air
to breathe is not a limitation on our freedom, but is is a condition for
its exercise. According to Marx and Engels, therefore, man makes
himself free by his control and use of material conditions for his own
purposes, to satisfy his own needs. The achievement of freedom depends
on understanding and mastering the necessities of material existence.
A word in time here about this use of the word “necessity” may
save some misunderstanding. It is, of course, a word which may be used in
several different senses in different contexts. Neither Marx nor Engels
ever went to the trouble of splitting hairs in the distinction between
these different senses — an omission for which they may perhaps be
reproached by contemporary philosophers, and which affords ample
scope for much lively nonsense at mad tea parties. The sense given to
FREEDOM
315
the word “necessity” is quite clearly the sense of “necessary condition”
or “necessary conditions”. Thus if we say that eating is a necessity of
life, that does not mean that we necessarily eat, but that unless we eat
we do not stay alive. Again, if we say that to construct aircraft we must
understand and master the natural necessities expressed in the laws of
aerodynamics, that does not mean that those laws are “necessities” in
any more abstruse sense than simply that they express the conditions
for controlled flight of bodies through the air.
So when Engels said that “man leaves the conditions of animal
existence behind him” he did not mean that man achieves “the emanci-
pation from the flesh” by freeing himself from the necessities of his
material existence, but he meant exactly what he said, namely, that
“the conditions of existence forming man’s environment, which up to
now have dominated man, pass under the dominion and control of
man”. Leaving “the conditions of animal existence” behind us is not a
matter of our spiritual being overcoming our material being and
escaping from its limitations, but of our learning, as animals which live
by satisfying their needs and creating new needs for themselves by
social production, how to develop our social and personal relations and
activities so as to satisfy our needs.
As Marx explained, when men learn rationally to regulate the
“interchange with nature” which is necessary to support human
existence they thereby make themselves free to engage in many
pursuits which they undertake, not because they are forced to do so
in order to support life, but because their success in producing material
necessities leaves them free to devote energies to other pursuits of their
own choosing. So when Marx said that “the shortening of the working
day” is a condition for “true freedom” he meant simply that it would
allow more time in which to do things, not because we have to do them
whether we like it or not, but because we like doing them and choose
to do them. This is a pointnvhich most industrial workers can readily
grasp, even if it is beyond the compass of Dr. Popper’s understanding.
Dr. Popper’s statement that Marx “followed Hegel’s famous
equation of freedom with spirit”, and believed that we are truly free
only in so far as we somehow cut ourselves off from the necessities of
material existence and emancipate ourselves from them, is the more
surprising because in Anti-Duhring (Part 1, Chapter n) Engels had
already succinctly and explicitly explained that exactly the opposite is
true. Dr. Popper perhaps failed to notice the significance of what
Engels had to say in Anti-Duhring because he dismisses that work as
31 6
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
mere “apologetics”, and also because, believing correctly that in
certain respects Marx and Engels “followed Hegel”, his own lack of
understanding of Hegel precludes him from all possibility of under-
standing what following Hegel meant.
“Hegel was the first to state correctly the relation between freedom
and necessity. To him, freedom is the appreciation of necessity,”
Engels wrote. He then continued: “Freedom v does not consist in an
imaginary independence of natural laws, but in the knowledge of these
laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them
work towards definite aims .... Freedom therefore consists in the
control over ourselves and over external nature which is founded on
knowledge of natural necessity.”
In talking about freedom Dr. Popper follows the well-worn liberal
tradition of dealing exclusively with political questions about how far
the state should prevent anyone doing just as he pleases, and demanding
that people should be forbidden to do some things only to protect
their freedom to do others. As a result, and as I have already noted, he
fails to take into account the very fundamental fact of human life
that, quite apart from any notices the state posts up about what is
permitted or prohibited, people’s freedom is restricted by their relation-
ship to their own means of production, so that each enjoys only that
unequal area of freedom which is allowed him by his ownership of
property and position within the social division of labour. Now it may
further be noted that in talking about freedom Dr. Popper fails to
take into account an even more fundamental consideration, namely,
that before anyone is free to do anything, the means must be available
to enable it to be done, and also the knowledge of how to do it.
To make ourselves free to carry out activities we must get control
over the necessary means for activities. People must have done this
collectively before individuals can be free to engage in those activities.
This consideration underlines and explains the fact that men can be
said to seek and to exercise a freedom in their activities of a kind not
attainable by other animals. This fact is misunderstood by Dr. Popper
when he assumes that the creation and extension of human freedom is
entirely a matter of politics, an activity in which other animals do not
engage, quite as much as it is misunderstood by those who say our
freedom is “spiritual”, whereas other animals are not “spiritual beings”.
Men are animals. But the species Homo sapiens , with upright stance and
human hands and brain, distinguished itself from all others by the
method of social production of the means of life. To do this men
FREEDOM
317
learned how to make tools and construct the means to bring about
various effects, and to represent to themselves (a first indispensable
means to this was the institution of language) effects which they wished
to produce and the actions necessary to bring them about. Thus they
developed the ways of purposive action in which human freedom
resides, whether in the production process itself, the management of
public affairs, or the pursuit of personal desires and aims. This consists
in making means available and knowing how they can be used to
produce various effects, so that one can choose whether to produce
those effects or not.
In the passage in Anti-Duhring quoted above, Engels said that human
freedom is people's own creation, and we create it by learning to
master and control material causes so as to set them to work for our own
purposes. To the extent that we learn how to use objects for our own
purposes our freedom of action is expanded. There is more we can do.
And this expanded freedom depends on our having acquired, as
Engels put it, “the capacity to make decisions with real knowledge of
the subject" — so that instead of being compelled to act all the time
simply in response to external stimuli, in which case our activity “is
controlled by the very object it should itself control", we are able to
select practicable purposes and set causes in motion and control their
effects so as to realise our purposes.
This freedom, Engels continued, “is a product of historical develop-
ment. The first men who separated themselves from the animal king-
dom were in all essentials as unfree as the animals themselves, but each
step forward in civilisation was a step towards freedom.” The “first
men" were “unfree" simply because in all their activity they remained,
like other animals, tied to their natural environment. They lived a free
life in the sense that they could roam around as they chose, and no one
oppressed them. But there was nevertheless very little they had made
themselves free to do, and as a result their lives were confined within a
very restricted round of tribal activities.
Material objects are the objects of our activity, and their laws are the
laws on the operations of which we rely in deciding how to act. It
would therefore be absurd to say (as Dr. Popper seems to suppose
Marx to have been saying) that the material world and its laws con-
stitute a restriction on our freedom — as though we could enjoy “true
freedom" only if there were no material world or if we ourselves were
not part of it and subject to its laws. But what is true is that material
objects and their laws are obstacles to our freedom of action, and their
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
318
presence ties down our action, except in so far as we can find out how to
use them and master them.
This, no doubt, is one reason why the more people become con-
scious of themselves as free agents the more imperative becomes their
urge to explore and master the environment. Thus quite apart from
considerations of economic or political advantage people form expedi-
tions to climb a mountain “because it is there”: there it is, an obstacle
to men going wherever they wish on our planet, so they feel deter-
mined to find the way to get to the top of it. Similarly, we feel it to be
worth while in itself to get to the moon, and then to other planets, and
then maybe outside the solar system. Apart from any other considera-
tions, it is a matter of demonstrating that the ruggedness of mountains
and the vacuity of space will not be allowed to prevent men’s freedom
of movement.
But to find out how thus to master the environment is not a matter
of finding out how to cancel or evade the laws of material existence,
nor is it a matter of simply pitting our own will and endurance against
the resistance of natural forces. It is a matter of finding out how to
construct the means.
In general, the basic condition for the expansion of human freedom
has been the advance of technology and the sciences. As Engels pointed
out: “On the threshold of human history stands the discovery that
mechanical motion can be transformed into heat: the production of
fire by friction. And at the close of the development so far gone
through stands the discovery that heat can be transformed into mechan-
cal motion: the steam engine.” The discovery of how to produce fire,
he continued, “gave man for the first time control over one of the
forces of nature, and thereby separated him for ever from the animal
kingdom”. And so he concluded: “All past history can be characterised
as the history of the epoch from the practical discovery of the trans-
formation of mechanical motion into heat up to that of the transfor-
mation of heat into mechanical motion” ( Anti-Duhring , Part 1, Chapter
n).
Thus, according *:o this account of it, the freedoms won by men up
to the latter part of the last century were those made possible by men’s
initial conquest of “control over one of the forces of nature”, developed
from transforming mechanical motion into heat to transforming
heat into mechanical motion. This is what made men free to do all the
things they could do up to the time Engels was writing. And this, he
added, “shows how young the whole of human history still is”.
FREEDOM
319
Since Engels' time the next great technological revolution has begun
with the discovery of how to generate and control nuclear energy,
coupled with the discovery of techniques of automation. This is fully
comparable with the initial discovery of fire. And its implications for
the expansion of human freedom are even greater. The development of
this technology is what can give substance to Marx's idea of men
“regulating their interchange with nature with the least expenditure of
energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their
human nature”. If Marx and Engels themselves could talk of the future
“realm of freedom” only in rather general terms, not readily under-
stood by Dr. Popper, that was because they died before the present
technological revolution began. The freedom which can be achieved on
the basis of future socialist production surpasses anything that could
have been made possible by even the most rational employment of
steam and internal combustion engines, and comprises all that is made
possible by the employment of nuclear energy and computers. This
means that men can draw on almost limitless sources of energy, and
apply them, not to powering machines which have all the time to be
arduously fed, repaired and controlled by human labour, but in pro-
cesses which are made self-feeding, self-repairing and self controlling
in the service of human purposes and needs.
5. THE MEANS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM
All the freedom which people win, and can win, is not won by each
individual for himself, but it is, as Engels stressed, a social product of the
combined efforts of many individuals over a long period of time. This
does not imply, however, that the freedom won consists of anything
else than a variety of specific freedoms enjoyed by individuals. On the
contrary, it is human individuals, and only human individuals, who
enjoy and exercise human freedom. But they enjoy and exercise it
thanks only to their living within, and their lives being regulated by,
social institutions.
The freedom which we want and strive for is the freedom of indi-
viduals: there is no other human freedom. But if individuals are to get
all, or even any part of, the freedom which could be theirs, it is essen-
tial to recognise that the freedom of each individual depends on what
has been and will be done by all individuals taken together, associated
in society. It depends on the opportunities for activities and choices of
activity which the individual enjoys. And in turn the opportunities and
320
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
choices open to each individual depend on what means for activities
and satisfactions have been created in the society to which he belongs,
and on what other members of that society permit and do not permit
him freely to do.
There is no doubt that individual freedom implies freedom of choice
for the individual. Thus to claim freedom is to claim individual freedom
of choice, that is, freedom to choose what to do without being exter-
nally constrained to do one thing and not to do another. Hence to be
free also implies personal responsibility. The free person chooses and
decides for himself, and does not merely do what he has been ordered
to do.
This is a point heavily and, we must agree, rightly stressed by Dr.
Popper when he writes about “the open society”. There must be
“personal responsibility” in a free society, he says, rather than indi-
viduals being instructed in all they should do (i-OS. 113). Such a
society, he insists, is one “in which individuals are confronted with
personal decisions” (i-OS. 173).
However, for the very reason that freedom implies personal res-
ponsibility, though freedom is proclaimed as a fme tiling it often
appears as something of a burden. It is, indeed, a hard fate to have to
choose what to do and bear responsibility for it, under circumstances
when one is beset w T ith all sorts of personal problems and lacks means
and opportunities to solve them, and also, very likely, is so deprived of
education that one does not even know what the problems are, let
alone how they might be solved. For this reason, people are sometimes
apt to welcome lack of freedom as a sort of refuge, and to advocate
depriving others of freedom for their own good. As Tolstoy wrote of
the army: “Here in the regiment all was clear and simple . . . there was
nothing to think out or decide” (War and Peace , V.15).
Dr. Popper himself recognises this difficulty when he goes on to talk
about “the strain of civilisation” consequent upon our having as
individuals “to look after ourselves and to accept responsibilities ,
(i-OS. 176). It would seem, therefore, that when individuals take upon
themselves the onus of personal responsibility they would be well
advised at the same time to do all they can to assist one another by
socially providing all possible means and opportunities for each
individual to benefit from it rather than harm himself and others.
Evidently, then, if social institutions are to promote and support
individual freedom, we must demand more of them than only that
individuals should be left free to act as they choose, on their own
FREEDOM
321
responsibility, and not be pressed or constrained to perform various
actions whether they choose to or not — with the proviso (on which
Dr. Popper and other liberals strongly insist) that if, nevertheless, they
act so as to harm others the police will be after them. We must demand
that all individuals should have access to the means and opportunities
for a variety of activities in which they can “develop and exercise all
faculties, physical and mental”, in co-operation and not to each other's
detriment; and we must demand that they should be afforded that
education which will enable them to “make decisions with real
knowledge of the subject”, and not be forced to make their decisions in
a random way, or on impulse or relying on the prejudiced advice of
others, uncontrolled by knowledge.
Recognising all this, what Marxism is therefore concerned about in
the matter of freedom is not only to decrease the number of constraints
imposed on individuals, but also to increase the opportunities and
choices available to each individual. This implies deploying the techni-
cal resources of society and organising education so as to provide all
with the means to a full life, and arranging social relations so that
each individual is able to take the fullest advantage of his opportun-
ities.
To work this out, the first question to tackle is the question why the
opportunities for individuals have in fact remained so very restricted,
and why people, whose freedom depends on each other, have done
so much more to hamper and restrict each other’s freedom than to
enlarge it. The Marxist theory of “the laws of social development” (in
Dr. Popper’s view so irrelevant on account of its “historicism” to any
questions of what is to be done to create a free society) not only supplies
the scientific answer to the question of why we have not yet a free
society, but also answers the question of what we must now do to
get one.
In brief, during the whole period of social development from men’s
first discovery of how to turn mechanical motion into heat up to the
discovery of how to turn heat into mechanical motion, the condition
for the social production of the means of life and enjoyment for indi-
viduals was that the great majority of people should be continuously
engaged in arduous labour. Hence whereas on the one hand people were
learning how to control forces of nature so as to produce what they
wanted for themselves, on the other hand the condition for this pro-
duction was that the great majority became tied to their own means of
production by bonds which condemned them to unremitting tod. As
322
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
Marx and Engels showed, the necessary division of labour consequent
upon the development of social production led to private property in
means of production, a separation of functions of ownership and man-
agement from those of productive labour, and the division of society
into exploiting and exploited classes. The exploiters and masters then
appropriated to themselves the opportunities for free activities and
enjoyments accruing from production, together with access to culture
and education, and the labouring classes, from whose labour these
opportunities were created, necessarily went without. Thus the con-
dition for the freedom of the few was the unfreedom of the many. The
many were driven to toil, whether by the physical force which oppres-
sed slaves and serfs or by the economic compulsion which compels free
wage-workers to sell their labour-power. They had no choice but to toil
for most of their lives.
It is in this that the unfreedom of the labourers has essentially
consisted. Superimposed on it have been the various political forms of
bondage, consisting of deprivations of rights, and oppressions and
coercions of various kinds, imposed on them within the social
institutions.
Throughout this period of history the class struggle has always taken
the form of struggles for freedom, or rather for specific freedoms which
people fought to retain or saw the possibility of winning. Such free-
doms can always be characterised in two ways, negative and positive,
“freedom from” and “freedom for”. People seek to free themselves
from specific impositions and restrictions on their activity, and to win
(or retain) conditions in which they are free to do specific tilings which
they want to do and in which they see advantage. Thus in class struggles
people have managed to free themselves from specific forms of political
oppression, and at the same time to win specific rights. The winning of
rights for some has always and necessarily meant the cancelling of rights
for others — for instance, the rights won when slavery was ended can-
celled the rights of slaveowners, the rights won in connection with the
establishment of capitalism cancelled feudal rights, and so on. But
whatever impositions and restrictions were shaken off, and whatever
rights were won, the fact remained that the exploited classes never won
freedom from exploitation, and the rights of the exploiters continued.
Hence whatever freedoms the exploited classes won (and in some
countries they have won a lot) were always limited by their being
driven to work for the greater part of their lives for the benefit and
under the orders of others, and the most cherished freedom of the
FREEDOM
323
exploiting classes has always been their freedom to direct and appro-
priate the labour of others.
The great contribution of the social researches of Marx was not
simply that he expounded these facts about freedom and lack of free-
dom in the historical development of the past, but that he showed that
private property in means of production, and exploitation, originally
necessary consequences of the division of labour, and necessary con-
ditions for the development of social production, have now become so
far from being necessary that they act as fetters on the further develop-
ment of social production. He recognised the fact (which none who
take into account the potentialities of modem technology can deny)
that with the modem development of forces of production it is no
longer necessary that the majority of the human race should devote the
greater part of their lives to labour, nor that the opportunity of educa-
tion and leisure to enjoy most of the advantage accruing from it
should belong to only a few. The conditions are present for the human
race finally to free itself from the age-old bondage of labour. And what
Marx did (Dr. Popper mistakes this for an historicist unconditional
prophecy of a violent revolution) was to work out the foundations of
the theory of how to win this freedom.
On the basis of his scientific social and historical analysis, Marx
demonstrated the necessary condition for it. This is that the modem
working classes must carry through what, when it is done, will be the
last act of the class struggle — to bring an end to private property in
means of production and the exploitation of labour, and establish
social ownership of means of production and planning of production
to satisfy human needs.
Then it will be possible (but not, of course, without considerable
collective efforts over a long period of time, nor without “many
mistakes” being made) to bring about the organisation of a free
society, in which collective management of the production of all the
necessary means to free activities is done and controlled with no other
object than the provision of those means to individuals. Then every
individual can enjoy for the greater part of his life all the opportunities
for unconstrained free human activity afforded by “the associated
producers rationally regulating their interchange with nature, bringing
it under their common control instead of being ruled by it as by the
blind forces of nature, and achieving this with the least expenditure of
energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their
human nature”.
324
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
This freedom which individuals can then enjoy comes from their
togetherness. It is the product of their working together. And only by
working together, obeying the rules of communal life, educating
themselves, and each contributing all he can to producing the satis-
faction of the needs of others, can they enjoy that freedom.
As regards work, or social production, Marx emphasised that in this
matter men do not have and cannot have a free choice as to whether to
engage in it or not. In this sphere, as he said, the only freedom that can
be won is the freedom of being able to work in the best obtainable
conditions, and of being able to contribute to the best of one’s abilities.
This is the point which Dr. Popper fmds so incomprehensible that he
can only interpret it as meaning that “true freedom” consists in “the
emancipation from the flesh”. But the point is simply that we are not
free to choose whether or not to engage in social production, because
if we are to enjoy any social life, and the freedoms obtainable in social
life, we have got to work for it. The means must be supplied, the work
has got to be done. So as human freedom springs from appreciation of
necessity, and not from any imaginary emancipation of any of our
activities from their necessary conditions, men and women in a free
society will regard work as a necessary condition for all their freedom.
Consequently, if they follow Marx’s advice, they will arrange for it to
be done as expeditiously, efficiently and effortlessly as possible, and to
this end will share it out on equalitarian principles according to a
rational plan.
3
THE OPEN SOCIETY
I. THE CLOSED AND THE OPEN SOCIETY
“We can return to the beasts**, so Dr. Popper tells us. “But if we wish
to remain human, then there is only one way, the way into the open
society** (i-OS. 201).
According to him, “the open society’* is something w r e find our
way into by getting out of “the closed society**. So its characteristics
are defined in opposition to those of the closed society. A “closed**
society is, he explains, a “primitive tribal society” which “lives in a
charmed circle of unchanging taboos, of laws and customs which are
felt to be as inevitable as the rising of the sun, or the cycle of the
seasons, or similar obvious regularities of nature”. It is characterised
by a “magical attitude”, as opposed to a scientific one. Its members
think that the rules current in their tribe w T hich “forbid or demand
certain modes of conduct” are as fixed and inviolable as natural laws
(i-OS. 57). So they never think of altering them, and anyone who
disobeys them is strongly disapproved of and punished for his audacity.
The attitude of the closed society, Dr. Popper next explains, is
continued in societies in which the state undertakes to regulate more
or less the whole of the citizens* lives. This, he warns, is to “replace
personal responsibility by tribalistic taboos and by the totalitarian
irresponsibility of the individual” (i-OS. 113). In the closed society
all the “norms” of conduct are laid down and strictly enforced, so that
individuals are not allowed to exercise their personal judgment as to
what is right. The results are generally bad. In the open society, on
the other hand, individuals exercise their own judgment, and so far
from their having to renounce personal judgment in subordination
to the state, the state is answerable to their judgment.
This contrast between the principles of operation of an open and a
closed society is pointed by Dr. Popper (i-OS. 7) in two quotations
from the ancient Greeks. One is a statement by Pericles: “Although
only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it.” The
other is taken from Plato: “The greatest principle of all is that nobody
. . . should be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be
habituated to letting him do anything at all on his own initiative . . .
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
326
even in the smallest matter he should stand under leadership. For
example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals . . .
only if he has been told to do so. In a word, he should teach his soul,
by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become
utterly incapable of it.”
In contrast to “the magical or tribal or collectivist” closed society,
then, the open society is “the society in which individuals are con-
fronted with personal decisions” (i-OS. 173).
“In the light of what has been said,” Dr. Popper continues, “it will
be clear that the transition from the closed to the open society can be
described as one of the deepest revolutions through which mankind
has passed” (i-OS. 175). According to his reading of history, this
revolution got under way in ancient Greece in the great days of
Athenian democracy. For it was there and then that “there rose a new
faith in reason, freedom and the brotherhood of all men — the new
faith and, as I believe, the only possible faith of the open society”
(i-OS. 184).
But the breakdown of the closed society, that is to say, the breaking
of its “charmed circle of unchanging taboos, of laws and customs”
within which everything individuals had to do was settled for them,
leads to individuals feeling a “strain” due to difficulties encountered
in trying to use their own judgment (i-OS. 176-7). Hence the con-
tinued urge is expressed to get back again somehow to the security of
a closed society, and to reimpose its fixed rules of life. This is expressed
in doctrines of “totalitarianism”, which echo the creed of the closed
society “that the tribe is everything and the individual nothing”
(i— OS. 190). It is likewise expressed in “nationalism”, which “appeals
to our tribal instincts, to passion and to prejudice, and to our nostalgic
desire to be relieved from the strain of individual responsibility which
it attempts to replace by collective or group responsibility” (2-OS.
49 ).
That is the sum-total of what Dr. Popper has positively to tell us
about the open in contrast to the closed society. What it amounts to is
that society is “open” when individual members of society are con-
strained by no externally imposed laws and customs in forming
judgments, and when not only is each individually responsible for his
own actions but exercises his independent judgment in approving or
disapproving public policies. To make such a society work, reliance is
not placed on inviolable law or custom or on the dictates of traditional
or any other authority, but on “faith in reason, freedom and the
THE OPEN SOCIETY
327
brotherhood of all men”. For it can flourish only when the members
of society try to form judgments by the exercise of reason, value the
freedom of each and all, and agree to live in brotherhood. On that
condition they can not only each exercise his individual judgment but
together preserve conditions of security for enjoying their freedom.
From this premise Dr. Popper concludes that, firm in “the faith of
the open society” we “must go on into the unknown, the uncertain
and insecure, using what reason we may have to plan as well as we can
for both security and freedom” (i-OS. 201).
Always anxious to be fair to Marx, even while exposing his errors
as sins against the open society, Dr. Popper allows that “he admitted
his love for freedom . . . Marx’s faith, I believe, was fundamentally a
faith in the open society” (2-OS. 200). But, he warns, “in spite of his
merits, Marx was ... a false prophet . . . responsible for the devastating
influence of the historicist method of thought within the ranks of those
who wish to advance the cause of the open society” (2-OS. 82).
Just as the “historicist” doctrine that society progresses from stage to
stage by inexorable necessity teaches individuals that their personal
decisions can count for nothing and they cannot be responsible for
what happens, so the dictatorship which Marx advocated would
actually deprive them of all responsibility. “The prophetic element in
Marx’s creed was dominant in the minds of his followers”, Dr. Popper
concludes. “It swept everything else aside, banishing the power of cool
and critical judgment and destroying the belief that by the use of
reason we may change the world.” Marx left us with “an oracular
philosophy” which “threatens to paralyse the struggle for the open
society” (2-OS. 198).
We have seen, however, that Marxism in fact investigates the
conditions for obtaining security and freedom for individuals, and
advocates the conquest of political power in order to plan the bringing
of these conditions into existence. Dr. Popper makes a great point of
emphasising “security and freedom” when he holds forth about what
we must plan for. Quite so. And a merit of Marx which Dr. Popper
does not share is that Marx did work out the necessary conditions for
planning for just that.
We may perhaps detect in Dr. Popper’s statement about “die way
into the open society” a certain vagueness, and even a combination of
big words with little meaning. For if we are to use “what reason we
may have”, not simply to protect our security and freedom when they
are in danger, but “to plan as well as we can” how to advance them,
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
328
then surely we must work out what conditions are required for
maximising both security and freedom and strive to bring them about.
And if that is a practical objective, then what we are heading towards
cannot be so entirely “unknown” as Dr. Popper says. True, it cannot
but remain “uncertain” because we cannot know how well we shall
succeed, and “insecure” because of the unexpected difficulties we may
encounter. But if Dr. Popper is right in saying that “the way into the
open society” leads “into the unknown”, his advice that “we should
plan as well as we can” how to take it is mere hot air. For how well can
we plan the way to go when we do not know where we are going?
Although Dr. Popper says that the route mapped out by Marxism is
to be avoided, because by taking it we shall only “return to the beasts”,
Marx’s views are still perhaps worth more serious consideration than
his own, because Marx did at least try to use such reason as he possessed
to work out what were the practical conditions for security and
freedom which we can now try to bring into existence.
Dr. Popper has written two volumes on “the open society and its
enemies”, comprising 481 pages of text plus 221 pages of notes. But
if one searches in them for information about how to go forward into
the open society and get rid of some of the deprivations of material
necessities, education and opportunity which individuals continue to
suffer on a large scale, one is left with nothing but generalities about
“individual responsibility”. One may well be tempted to echo Prince
Hal’s exclamation when he examined the record of his mentor’s
proceedings: “O monstrous! but one half-pennyworth of bread to
this intolerable deal of sack!”
2. THE WAY INTO THE OPEN SOCIETY
Dr. Popper assures us that “the transition from the closed to the open
society can be described as one of the deepest revolutions through
which mankind has passed”, but has little to say about how it happened.
In one of his luminous and voluminous notes, however, he supplies us
with a “criterion”. “It seems to be possible to give some useful criterion
of the transition from the closed society to the open. The transition
takes place when social institutions are first consciously recognised as
man-made, and when their conscious alteration is discussed in terms of
their suitability for the achievement of human aims or purposes. Or,
putting the matter in a less abstract way, the closed society breaks
down when the supernatural awe with which the social order is
THE OPEN SOCIETY
329
considered gives way to active interference, and to the conscious
pursuit of personal or group interests” (i-OS. 294).
As he told us at the start, in the closed society institutions are not
recognised as man-made, but are regarded as fixed and inviolable
parts of the order of the universe. So they cannot be interfered with,
and their alteration cannot be discussed. When there enters into men’s
heads the consciousness that their institutions are man-made, they can
start discussing how to alter them. After that, Dr. Popper concludes,
the chief tiling that has continued to obstruct our going foward with
the conscious and rational alteration of institutions “for the achieve-
ment of human aims or purposes” has been the dead weight of pre-
historic beliefs left over from tribalism and elaborated by enemies of
the open society as doctrines treating institutions as other than man-
made.
Dr. Popper’s statement that people came to recognise their insti-
tutions as man-made and advanced out of the closed society by
altering them to suit the various purposes suggested by personal or
group interests is not very illuminating as a description of what
happened, and even less as an explanation. Marxists may perhaps be
excused for suspecting in this account of what happened in history, if
not an “historicist” doctrine about the “pattern” of historical develop-
ment, at least a considerable oversimplification. But that Dr. Popper
does not himself altogether share the idealist doctrine that great changes
in human social behaviour can be described and explained simply as
the spontaneous generation in some men’s minds of new ideas about
their social institutions is shown by his own statement in the text, that
“perhaps the most powerful cause of the breakdown of the closed
society was the development of sea-communications and commerce”
(i-OS. 177).
The point was made a long time ago by Marx, and is now generally
agreed (including, it seems, by Dr. Popper), that what makes “tribal
society” break down and other more “open” forms of society emerge
is the development of technology. Sea-communications and commerce
are, of course, a part of this, and have had a very disturbing effect on
societies in which they were developed — though tribalism in fact
began to break down before sea-faring commerce got under way.
Anyway, where technology has not been developed, there tribalism
with its “charmed circle of unchanging taboos” has not been disturbed.
Marx showed, and subsequent researches have continued to show, that
technological innovations proved incompatible with many of the laws
330
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
and customs previously held inviolable in tribal society, as a result of
which the laws and customs were violated. This circumstance broke
into the “superstitious awe” with which the tribal order was sur-
rounded. And because the use of new technology, with division of
labour, set up personal and group interests as distinct from the single
tribal interest, it led to “the conscious pursuit of personal or group
interests”.
The consciousness that social institutions are man-made is indeed,
as Dr. Popper says, of vital importance for human progress, because
of the implication that what man made man can improve on. But if
we are to understand the real issues and problems men have faced
since the breakdown of tribalism, and still more what it is possible to
do now to alter institutions to suit human purposes, and what is
necessary in order to do it, it is hardly sufficient simply to be conscious
that institutions are man-made. As I have said before, we need to
know the laws and conditions of their making.
Dr. Popper says with truth that when tribal society breaks down
there ensues “the conscious pursuit of personal or group interests” —
though this statement could be qualified by remarking, with Marx,
that consciousness of interests often takes a disguised form. If in
primitive tribal society there was as yet no attempt made to alter
institutions to suit personal or group interests, that was not so much
because the tyranny of tribal custom forbade it as because there were
no separate personal or group interests to be suited. Obviously, once
separate interests had arisen, to get institutions altered to suit them was
an example of “the achievement of human aims or purposes”, because
the interests were human ones. But as obviously, it is a far cry from
“the pursuit of group interests” to “the achievement of human
purposes” in the sense that the achievement suits the interests of all
human beings and not only of one group of them in opposition to
another. In fact the “pursuit of personal or group interests” which
ensues upon the breakdown of tribal society led invariably, and quite
inevitably, to the forcible subordination of the interests of persons to
the interests of groups, and of the interests of one group to those of
another. So far as most persons were concerned, the kind of class-
divided society which succeeded tribalism was very far from “open”,
not because their opportunities for “personal decision” in the conduct
of life were thwarted by tribal taboos, but because they were thwarted
by the subjection of their personal and group interests to those of the
ruling class.
THE OPEN SOCIETY
331
Marx demonstrated clearly enough how it was that “personal or
group interests” came to be pursued, and what were (and still are)
the overall results of this pursuit. The cause was the development of
the social forces of production. And Marx pointed out that this
development was not simply a process of invention of new teclmiques
but a change in the sum-total of activity of human beings in obtaining
and distributing the means of life.
The primitive tribe, living by food-gathering and hunting, consti-
tuted a single group of people banded together to produce and appro-
priate their own product for their own use. Its unchanging taboos,
laws and customs represented no tyranny practised against individuals
but rather the means of maintaining the tribal solidarity on which the
very existence of every individual in such conditions depended. The
invention of teclmiques of cultivating the land, domesticating animals,
handicrafts and metalworking broke up the closed society of the tribe,
because they entailed the division of labour. This differentiated people
from one another in their ways of obtaining the requirements of life.
It brought property in means of production and in products, exchange
of products, and the production of a surplus out of which owners and
managers could be supported.
This in turn meant that while social wealth increased, and con-
sequently the scope of the activities and enjoyments possible for
individuals, the producers collectively lost control over their product.
For it was no longer a collective product but a sum of individual
products passing into the process of exchange. And those who owned
property acquired separate interests in augmenting it. Some persons
could acquire property in means of production to the exclusion of
others, and in that way command the labour of others and appropriate
its surplus for themselves. The labourers were then placed in a position
where they had to work to supply products to owners and managers,
as directed by the latter. Their working capacities were no longer
exerted by them after the tribal custom as part of the collective effort
to supply the collective need, but were appropriated by an owning
and managing class for its own enrichment.
Thus the antagonisms of classes were created, and the history of
society became the history of class struggles. With this, the whole
business of social management changed. The state came into existence,
as an institution through which some men rule over the rest.
With the capitalist economic formation, the changes winch were
set up by the breakdown of tribal society eventually come to a head.
332
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
All products are produced as commodities for exchange, which means
that the entire social product passes out of the control of the producers.
The producers’ own labour-power becomes a commodity, so that
the direction and control of their personal abilities to produce what
each needs is entirely lost to them. People cannot now decide to work
to produce what they want, since they have to work for whoever will
buy their labour-power; and the increase or decrease of the total
product, the proportions of different branches of production, and the
eventual destination of products are all outside the producers’ control
and settled by economic laws of the market which operate independ-
ently of the voluntary actions of men. The class struggle is polarised
into a single antagonism between the class which sells its labour-power
and the class which buys it. And finally, the state, as a power which
men have set up over themselves to rule them, becomes greatly
strengthened and centralised; and the more it intervenes in economic
production and distribution, the more does it stand over the producers
as an organisation which rules them but which they do not
control.
In all these respects, the social relations which obtain under capitalism
are the complete negation of those which originally obtained under
tribalism or primitive communism. In moving away from the tribal
order, the social formation has gone as far as it can go, into the direct
antithesis. In men’s social development, capitalism stands at the furthest
remove from tribalism . Where before nothing was produced as a
commodity, now everything is produced as a commodity. Where
people appropriated and consumed their social product as they
produced it, now it has gone out of their control. Where people
banded together to try to produce what they wanted, now each
worker has to do what work he is told. Where there was no division
of class interest, now there is a deep class division cutting right through
society. And where people decided their common affairs for them-
selves according to their own tribal laws and customs, now they are
subject to the rule of an all-powerful state.
Since, then, Dr. Popper identifies “the closed society” with tribalism,
it is natural that he should see in the antithetical conditions obtaining
under capitalism the realisation of “the open society”. For him, indeed,
“the open society” is only another name for capitalism.
But he never sees that the development of forces of production
and of relations of production, which led from the breakdown of
primitive communism to the establishment of capitalism, was a
THE OPEN SOCIETY
333
development of different methods of exploiting labour. He only remarks
superficially on some of their effects in institutions of social manage-
ment, in ideologies and in the lives of individuals. Hence he sees the
antithesis between tribalism and capitalism only as the antithesis
between a society which “lives in a charmed circle of unchanging
taboos, of laws and customs which are felt to be as inevitable as the
rising of .the sun”, and one where institutions can be regarded as
“man-made” and people can discuss their alteration to suit their
personal or group interests. For him, capitalism is “the open society”
because there are separate personal and group interests inside it and
people can organise to press them ; and because no human institutions
are any longer regarded as sacrosanct but everyone can discuss whether
it is best to keep them as they are or alter them. In that sense, it is
“open”. But yet the way the institutions of the production and dis-
tribution of the means of life are fixed prevent people from being able
to take personal decisions and to accept individual responsibility for
working together for the production of their needs.
In the light of these considerations we cannot but view with scepti-
cism Dr. Popper’s contention that all those institutions and ideologies
which have oppressed individuals since the demise of tribalism are at
bottom hangovers from the tribe, dragging mankind backwards to the
tribal closed society. One may freely admit the obvious fact, which
Dr. Popper vigorously affirms, that ideologies and institutions im-
posing beliefs, taboos, laws and customs to be accepted and obeyed
without criticism are incompatible with individual responsibility,
personal decision and rational judgment. One may agree that such
were the ideologies and institutions in tribal societies. And one may
agree, too, that subsequent' exemplars have often and regrettably
appealed to the same irrational fear and hatred directed against taboo-
breakers and outsiders which tribesmen sometimes evince. But that
does not mean that all subsequent repressive ideologies and institutions
have been hangovers from tribalism. On the contrary, the shut-down
they impose on individuals has had no tendency towards restoring
the primitive communal way of life. The state of affairs which the
hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful” finds so admirable
“The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate,
God made them high or lowly, and ordered their estate”
is absolutely foreign and unknown to tribesmen. The ideas and institu-
tions of tribalism were those of the solidarity of small groups in
334
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
which no one pursued personal or group interests in antagonism to
his fellows. These subsequent ideas and institutions were consequent
upon the destruction of that primitive human solidarity and the
dominance in society of acquisitive class interests.
Dr. Popper tries to make out that such modern phenomena as
“totalitarianism” are a return to tribalism, induced by people feeling
“the strain of civilisation” in an open society. But the facts make it
clear that the repression of individuals under modern totalitarianism
has little in common with primitive tribal solidarity but represents
the violent assertion of the interests of an aggressive group of exploiters.
Having identified “the struggle for the open society” as the attempt
to alter institutions to suit personal or group interests, and “the closed
society” with the suppression of separate interests, which in turn is
identified with tribalism, Dr. Popper then goes on to contend that
the policies of a militant labour movement are another sort of totali-
tarianism which will likewise lead us back to tribal conditions. For
these policies will suppress certain interests, and subordinate personal
and group interests to a common interest. It would seem that a delegate
conference is like a tribal jamboree, and that in every militant mass
demonstration civilisation is threatened by the primitive horde run
riot. So by representing “the struggle for the open society” as the
struggle finally to overcome tribal hangovers, consummated in the
capitalist antithesis to primitive communism, Dr. Popper ignores and
obscures completely the struggle to overcome the forms of class domination
which superseded tribalism, and the resistance it meets with from the
forces which organise to maintain class domination.
In capitalist society the “open” conditions have been created where
people can organise to change their social institutions in a way con-
sciously decided to suit their interests. And the class struggle has
reached a stage where the working class emerges as an organised force
equipped with a scientific theory of how social changes can be brought
about. So the issue which insistently arises in this society is that of
organised action by the working class to throw off the fetters of capital-
ism, take control of the state into the hands of its own democratic
organisations, and institute social measures to bring social production
under the control of the organised producers. The very “openness”
of capitalist society provides the conditions for ending the exploitation
of man by man which supervened on the break-up of the “closed
society” of tribalism. The issue therefore posed by “the open society”
as it actually exists at the present day is not that of defending it from
THE OPEN SOCIETY
335
reversion to tribalism but of going forward to socialism and com-
munism.
The progress of mankind from the animal condition from which
we sprang is progress in the human activity of socially producing the
means of life, and of increasing the scope of human activity and
achievement as we get further from the animal condition by mastering
the materials and forces of the natural environment for human pur-
poses. It is in this progress that there is made possible the individuality
of the human person, as distinct from the animal as a member of the
species conditioned to the unchanging habits of the species. Human
individuality is the product of the increase of mens collective powers
and of the increased supply of the means to a more varied life. Dr.
Popper says that “if we wish to remain human” we must go forward
“into the open society”. If we wish to remain human we must go on
producing our needs, and we shall go forward with this the better if we
manage by human co-operation to control the product so as to supply
everyone’s needs and thus allow to the development of everyone’s
individuality full scope. That means we must overcome the exploitation
of man by man , and the divisions of class-society.
The poor life of primitive communities, when all individuals had to
be much the same as one another and cling together in a common
observance of taboos and customs, was overcome by the development
of new forces of production, which in turn led to the negation of the
tribal solidarity of primitive man by class divisions. The poverty-
stricken subsistence economy was negated by commodity production.
The close ties of kinship between individuals within the tribal organ-
isation were negated by making all individuals living and working
in a territory the subjects -of a state. But these negations must be
negated by the working people of today asserting their control as
producers over the socialised production of modem industry, equipped
as it is with techniques capable of producing plenty, thus instituting
once more the social appropriation of the social product, and taking
over organised democratic control of state power. Then the future
conditions for the freedom of human individuals, with their individual
responsibilities and personal decisions, will be secure.
This is what Dr. Popper, with his abstract description of “the open
society” as the antithesis of the tribal or “closed” society, entirely fails
to understand. He simply fails to comprehend what Marx demonstra-
ted, namely, that the negation of the “closed society” of tribalism only
led to class divisions and exploitation, and that the way forward
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
33<5
“into the open society” now demands the negation of this negation.
Shocked by such Hegelian horrors, Dr. Popper protests vociferously
that this is nothing but an “historicist” doctrine cooked up by dog-
matically applying to human development the arbitrary pattern of
“thesis-antithesis-synthesis”. To end the conditions of the pursuit of
antagonistic personal and group interests which superseded tribalism
will, .according to him, only land us back into a worse sort of tribalism.
But it is in these capitalist apologetics of Dr. Popper that an uncom-
prehending dogmatic attitude is to be found, not in the scientific
socialist theory of Marx. Marx did not deduce the course of history
from any Hegelian formula. He examined how men actually made their
institutions , and saw that the time had come when the exploitation of man by
man could and should be ended.
This being so, to go forward “into the open society” is not to go,
as Dr. Popper says, “into the unknown”. On the contrary, there are
definite issues to face, a definite job to do, and an organisation to be
built to do it.
3. RESPONSIBILITY, INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE
In Dr. Popper’s conception, the essential feature of “the open society”
is that individuals in it bear personal responsibility and make personal
decisions. With him, this suffices to define “the open society”: a
society is “open” when it allows enough scope for personal responsi-
bility and personal decisions. His objection to Marxism is so strong
because he says Marxists hatch plots to take personal responsibility
away from individuals, and to prevent their making personal decisions,
by enforcing on them a tyranny similar to that which he says existed
in tribes — the tyranny of collective taboos, laws and customs. But let
us agree with him in calling society “open” when it allows scope for
responsibility and decisions ; then far from objecting to society being
made “open” in that sense, Marxists agree with him that the more
“open” it can be made the better. Apologists for capitalism have no
monopoly in wishing society to be “open”. Still less have they a
monopoly in policies of how to make it so.
“Our own ways of life”, Dr. Popper freely admits (meaning the
ways of life in capitalist democracies), “are still beset with taboos. . . .
And yet . . . there is between the laws of the state on the one hand and
the taboos we habitually observe on the other, an ever-widening field
of personal decisions, with its problems and responsibilities.” This field
THE OPEN SOCIETY
337
of personal decisions and responsibilities is not just the field of private
life, for “many of us make rational decisions concerning the desirability
or otherwise of new legislation, and of other institutional changes;
that is to say, decisions based upon an estimate of possible con-
sequences, and upon a conscious preference for some of them. We
recognise rational personal responsibility” (i-OS. 173). The great
point which we have won is that we recognise that institutions are
man-made and that it is open to us to alter them, so that there exists, as
Dr. Popper goes on to point out, “the possibility of rational reflection
on these matters” — rational reflection consisting of estimating possible
consequences and formulating conscious preferences. So although we
“are still beset with taboos”, everyone can judge for himself as to what
is best in the way of “new legislation and other institutional changes”,
and is not bound to submit his judgment to that of anyone placed in
authority over him.
This personal responsibility and freedom of personal decision in our
open society is opposed by Dr. Popper to “the totalitarian irresponsi-
bility of the individual” where individuals are not allowed to judge
or decide anything for themselves. In the open society choices are open
to individuals as to what they shall do and what they shall make of
their lives, as individuals, and also as to what they shall think and what
public policies they shall support or oppose, so that in deciding all
these matters for themselves there is also open to them “the possibility
of rational reflection”.
That being so, he opposes “collective” to “individual responsibility”.
He sees the collective as a tyranny, or at all events a potential tyranny,
over the individual, which would force the individual to abandon his
personal judgment to a collective judgment, his individual responsibility
to a collective responsibility, and his personal choice as to what he
should do to a collective instruction as to what he should do. To call
for “collective responsibility” is, he implies, a case of reintroducing
“the totalitarian irresponsibility of the individual”.
It is of course perfectly true that in “our own ways of life” there is,
exactly as Dr. Popper says, “an ever-widening field of personal
decisions, with its problems and responsibilities”. How r much this
field has widened in the case of working people in particular can be
readily appreciated by comparing the conditions of contemporary
wage-workers with former serfs. When in the year 1381 the English
King, Richard II, told the defeated remnants of the peasants’ revolt
“serfs ye are, and serfs ye shall remain” he meant, among other tilings,
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
338
that they should make no personal decisions as to whom they worked for
or where they worked. The serf was in fact allowed very little personal
responsibility for anything. The contemporary wage-worker is, by
comparison, a very responsible person with scope for a large number
of personal decisions on matters ranging from where to apply for a
job to whom to vote for in parliamentary elections.
If Marxists now sought to deprive workers of the individual re-
sponsibilities and scope for personal decisions they have won it would
be a strange inconsistency, considering that Marxists have always
fought to help win them and in that sense have been among the fore-
most champions of “the open society”. But Marxists do say that for
individuals to have individual responsibilities and make individual
decisions is not enough. We want to institute forms of the exercise
of collective responsibility and collective decision. The reason why we
want this is that individuals live, and can only live, within a frame-
work of the social production of the means of life. And this reason also
defines the sphere within which we think that collective responsibility
should be exercised. But this is what causes Dr. Popper to conclude
that we are heading straight back to tribalism. For according to him,
individual and collective responsibility are incompatibles. He sets them
in antithesis, so that anyone who calls for collective responsibility is in
effect calling for an end to individual responsibility and its replacement
by “the totalitarian irresponsibility of the individual”. It is also the end
of rationality. For it puts an end to “the possibility of rational reflec-
tion” which resides in the making of personal decisions.
One ought to ask what exactly can be meant by “collective responsi-
bility”. Dr. Popper cites “nationalism” as a case where it takes over.
Though he is far from explicit as to his meaning, it seems a fair guess
that his reference is to cases where a large number of persons constitute
themselves into a mob, activated by a common sentiment. It is true
that in such cases the individuals concerned can hardly be credited with
“rational responsibility” for what they are doing, and that together
they bully, intimidate and coerce any other individuals who try to
think for themselves and oppose themselves in any way to the clamour
of the mob. It is also true that when such a tyranny of the mob occurs
it can provide the opportunity for a “strong man” to step into the
leadership and exert his own personal tyramiy, so that the tyranny
of the mob leads to “the rule of the strong man” and “the strong man”
makes use of mob sentiments in order to enforce his own rule. But
while it may be true that this type of social behaviour “appeals to our
THE OPEN SOCIETY
339
tribal instincts, to passion and to prejudice, and to our nostalgic desire
to be relieved from the strain of individual responsibility which it
attempts to replace by collective or group responsibility”, it is hardly
true that it presents an example of anything that could reasonably be
called “collective responsibility”. Indeed, one of the chief objections
to letting ourselves forgo our “individual responsibility” and be
carried away by mob sentiments is that the result is not “collective
responsibility” but collective irresponsibility.
Collective responsibility is created where and only where people are united
in democratic organisation. In that case they can engage in rational
discussion and debate as to what to do as an organised body. And when
they do it, it is done as a result of a collective decision arrived at as
the product of the organised accumulation of a number of individual
decisions. Clearly, collective responsibility exercised through democratic
organisation is not incompatible with individual responsibility . On the
contrary, it follows from the exercise of responsibility by individuals united
in an organisation . And it is not incompatible either with “the possibility
of rational reflection”, but furthers it.
Marxists, therefore, who favour the development of democratic
organisation, are not, as Dr. Popper alleges, seeking to replace “in-
dividual responsibility” and “personal decision” by a fictitious “collec-
tive responsibility” which only masks the tyranny of the mob or “the
rule of the strong man”. On the other hand, to set the one against the
other, as Dr. Popper does, is in effect to seek to limit the sphere of
responsibility. For the truth is that there exists a large sphere of matters
of public concern for the continuous control of which no one
can be held responsible unless there is organised collective responsibil-
ity-
Dr. Popper sees responsibility and decision exclusively as individual
matters. Thus in public affairs certain persons, namely, those who hold
offices of power, make decisions and are responsible for making them ;
and other persons, when there are democratic institutions, control
them by casting their votes in accordance with individual “decisions
concerning the desirability or otherwise of new legislation and of other
institutional changes”. And that is “the open society”. But, we may
ask, who is responsible for the forms taken by our social relations of pro-
duction? In our present capitalist way of life, where it is open to in-
dividuals to make so many “rational decisions”, no one is responsible.
Of course, decisions taken by numerous individuals in the pursuit of
their personal or group interests resulted in these social relations being
340
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
instituted. But no individual or collective decision was ever taken to
institute these kinds of social relations, in which social production is
fettered by the private appropriation of the social product by owners
of capital. The fact is that, as Marx pointed out, men have entered into
relations of production independent of their will. The way people
conduct themselves to produce and distribute their means of life has
not been and in capitalist countries still is not decided upon in the light
of any rational estimation of consequences. Marxism is concerned with
ways and means of remedying this deplorable situation of irresponsi-
bility in the most basic affairs of social life. Marxists work to build
organisation by means of which the conduct of social production can be
collectively decided and its management collectively controlled . Only within
such organisation can it become open for individuals to discuss and take
rational collective decisions as to how the common social resources are to be
used to meet individual needs .
Once again, it is not liberals and individualists like Dr. Popper who
advocate the extension of “rational responsibility” for all members
of the human race, while Marxists oppose it. It is exactly the other way
round.
When writing about institutions, Dr. Popper himself clearly re-
cognised that, because institutions are man-made, it does not follow
that anyone is responsible for the decision to make them or for de-
cisions as to how they are altered. As he said, many “just grow”.
But when it comes to writing about the “open” and “closed” societies,
and contrasting capitalist society as “open” with tribal society as
“closed”, he forgets this simple truth. For he fails to notice that a
similar condition of irresponsibility as regards the most important
institutions — those concerned with relations of production — continues
throughout the development of social formations from tribalism or
primitive communism to capitalism. In tribal society the “taboos and
customs” were certainly “man-made”, but because no one was
consciously responsible for making or altering them the tribesmen
thought of them as inescapable conditions of human life which men
were bound to accept. Thus they were closed in by rules of their own
making which nevertheless ruled them like an external power de-
termining their personalities, their relations with each other and their
conduct of life. When tribal society broke up as a result of the develop-
ment of the forces of production people made for themselves the rules
of property, of exploitation of man by man and of the division of
classes. And these have ruled them just the same, and closed them in,
THE OPEN SOCIETY
341
even though (for some people at any rate) there is greater scope for
personal decisions and personal responsibility.
In our capitalist society we are still ruled and closed in in the same
way. Thus in social production people have to sell their labour-power,
so that they have to work on tasks set for them and not on producing
what they have decided to produce to meet their needs. Everyone
concerned, whether worker or manager, is driven to work for the
accumulation of capital. The product of labour is put into the market,
so that neither whose who make it nor those who need it have overall
control to ensure that what is made shall get to those who need it and
that what is needed shall be made. Again, the relations which people
have entered into in producing the means of life create divisions
between them so that they fmd themselves in dispute and at enmity,
and are driven to injure one another, for reasons for which they are
in no way personally responsible.
In all this, where is the rational responsibility, open to all individuals
to accept and exercise, for arranging social relations so as to make the
most rational use of social resources? It is not open to us, and cannot be
until we organise to assume it collectively.
In our society these conditions are what we accept and are used to
and adapt ourselves to, as to the weather or the constitution of our
bodies. So they generally seem to us “as inevitable as the rising of the
sun, or the cycle of the seasons, or similar obvious regularities of
nature* \ and as much an unalterable element of “human nature” as
having a head, two arms and two legs. Hence doctors of philosophy
and of science are judged to advise us wisely when they say that any
radical alterations are out of the question, just as were doctors of magic
in more primitive communities. They exclude human relations from
the sphere of human responsibility.
The fact is that in these and other ways we are now, as men were
originally in tribal society, in the grip of man-made conditions which
men made for themselves independent of their will. These man-made
conditions are to us like an external power for which no one can be
held responsible. And this external power rules us with laws of its
own, imposing on us our relations with one another, compelling us
to do what we do and treat one another as we do, and determining
the consequences of social actions irrespective of intentions or desires.
To talk about increasing the scope for responsibility and decision
in making and altering social institutions, and in the activity of in-
dividuals within these institutions, therefore, leads us to the fundamen-
342
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
tal question of how to organise “rational responsibility” for our
institutions, and especially for the basic institutions of relations of
production, so that rational decisions about them can be- made and
carried out. Great as may be the scope for the pursuit of “personal
and group interests” in existing capitalist society, and for “personal
decisions” and “individual responsibility” in their pursuit, our society
remains closed in the sense that there is no organisation through which
rational responsibility can be accepted and exercised for conducting
the basic business of social production for satisfying human needs.
Part of Marx's great achievement was that he devoted to the
conditions of “the closed society”, and to their historical development,
an analytical investigation more penetrating than that now deemed
convenient and sufficient by Dr. Popper. He studied how men have
come to make for themselves these conditions which have always
closed us in, and still do. And this led to the conclusion that mankind
is at last in a position where they can be overcome.
The issue posed by Marx was that of the organised working-class
movement, in conscious pursuit of an interest scientifically defined
and understood, taking control of political power so as to plan social
production. That would mean that at last people would begin collec-
tively to take responsibility for arranging the basic relations of property
in means of production so as to get control over the whole process of
social production and direct it to meet human needs. As Engels said in
Socialism , Utopian and Scientific , “men’s own social organisation, which
has hitherto stood in opposition to them as if arbitrarily decreed by
nature and history, will then become the voluntary act of men them-
selves”. And if we adopt Dr. Popper’s quite suggestive terminology,
we shall conclude that this is the great step to be taken out of the
“closed” into the “open” society. The production of the means of life
is then controlled by collective decisions, in the making and carrying
out of which individuals bear personal responsibility, as responsible
members of the organisations that see to it. And the overcoming of
want, of exploitation and of enmity, with the sharing and lightening of
labour, brings to everyone far greater opportunities and choices for
personal activity than heretofore, and therefore more personal responsi-
bility and more freedom in personal decisions.
4
COMMUNISM
I. THE RATIONALITY AND PRACTICALITY OF COMMUNISM
I shall now return to the question of whether, to “plan as well as we can
for security and freedom”, we have to “go into the unknown”.
Marx quite clearly defined where we have to go in terms of commun-
ism, explaining that the socialist organisation of social production
which must immediately replace capitalism is only a transitional
stage towards a communist society. His advice about the socialist
planning of production and distribution was therefore based on the
idea that this should be planned with the end in view of creating
communism. The transition from socialism to communism is explained
in the simplest terms by stating that it is the transition from a society
ruled by the maxim “from each according to his ability, to each
according to his work” to one ruled by the maxim “from each accord-
ing to his ability, to each according to his need”. When by the rational
planned development and use of techniques there is being produced an
abundance of everthing people need, the communist maxim becomes
the one to adopt.
Dr. Popper’s objections to communism are based on saying that it
is “utopian”. A communist society sounds attractive as Marx describes
it but, says Dr. Popper, the thing is impossible. It is only a dream. It is
the dream of returning to the primitive tribal condition of everyone
working together and sharing — but with the whole human race
engaged instead of only a few kinsmen, and with mechanised pro-
duction to produce plenty instead of crude implements to eke out a
bare living in the bush. If we try to realise such a dream, he'informs us,
we are in for a rude awakening. For it would involve forcibly suppress-
ing all that “pursuit of personal or group interests” which has now
become the chief engagement of citizens of “the open society”. We
would be back into “the closed society”, but under a tyranny much
worse than the old tribal “taboos, laws and customs”. There would
take place, “the most brutal and violent destruction of all that is
human” at the hands of “the Inquisition, the Secret Police and a roman-
ticised gangsterism” (i-OS. 200).
Dr. Popper’s grounds for saying that the goal of communism is
344
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
utopian are entirely political. He says that the concentration of political
power required as a preliminary would necessarily be uncontrolled,
and seeks to portray, in the customary language of anti-communist
politics, the inevitable consequences of any such uncontrolled con-
centration of political power in the hands of the working-class move-
ment. I think I have already written enough in rebuttal of his deposi-
tion that communist politics is the politics of violence and tyranny,
suppressing all rights, all freedom, all democratic control, all indi-
vidual responsibility and personal decision. He is mistaken in supposing
that Marxism advocates or communism requires such politics. He is
additionally mistaken in supposing that the argument as to whether or
not communism is a practical goal is or could be primarily a political
argument. Marx's reasons for putting forward the communist pro-
gramme were economic. They were, in brief, that with socialised
production carried on with techniques eventually capable of producing
abundance of all we need, the form of social organisation eventually
required will be one which permits everyone to contribute to social
production to the best of his ability and derive from it the satisfaction of
his needs.
Dr. Popper blames Marx for holding that economics rules politics.
But yet the problems which political policy has to solve are derived from
the state of the economy. Marx worked out the politics based on
recognising the economic facts of our time, the politics for instituting
that control and that planning of social production which is required to
make the fullest social use of it. He clearly recognised the economic
fact that modern production techniques are capable of development to
produce abundance to satisfy human needs. That being so, what is there
utopian in proposing the social aim of actually producing abundance
and satisfying needs out of it? The proposal is to engineer institutions
through which we can work together to satisfy needs in the way we
know well they can be satisfied, instead of institutions which leave us
to “go into the unknown” and accept “personal responsibility” for the
inconveniences which ensue when one does not know where one is
going.
The opinion that communism is nevertheless a utopia boils down to
the opinion that the “pursuit of personal and group interests” which
has predominated since the establishment of “the open society”
precludes the practical possibility of our working together for the
common benefit. It is a poor advertisement for “the open society” if
that is so, and if we cannot accept “individual responsibility” and make
COMMUNISM
345
“personal decisions” without mismanaging our economic affairs in the
way they are mismanaged under capitalism. This opinion fails to take
account of the issues of the class struggle under capitalism. Marx
pointed out that so long as control is exercised by competing interest-
groups, each bent on its own power and profit, it is indeed not only
unlikely but impossible that production should be developed as it is
capable of being developed to satisfy needs — but that the democratic
class struggle and democratic control of power by working-class
organisations, under scientific socialist political leadership, could
manage it.
The fact that the working class exists as a social force opposed to
capitalism, and willy-nilly pursues a class struggle disruptive of capi-
talism, is what makes the ending of capitalism and social advance to-
wards communism a practical proposition in our society. For if no
interest were interested in it, such an advance could not take place in a
society where “pursuit of personal or group interests” predominates.
The working-class interest is the class interest in capitalist society
which demands the use of social production to meet social needs,
whereas the other class interests interpose considerations of their own
preservation against such a demand. Anyone who proposes to work for
communism today must therefore join in with the working-class
movement.
But so far as the goal is concerned, and the contention that the
foundation of a communist order of society is the known objective to
be gained in order to establish security and freedom, the case for
communism is based on considerations about technology, and the
communist programme is a programme for making use of modern
technology. To appreciate the case for communism, and to appreciate
that the revolutionary movement which aims at communism is the one
which knows how to solve the problems and realise the possibilities
now presented by the economic development of the forces of pro-
duction, it is only necessary to employ, quite disinterestedly, “what
reason we may have”.
2. SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF MODERN TECHNIQUES
Marx based his conclusions on examining the techniques of the indus-
trial revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Two defini-
tions which he gave are of especial importance. One is that of “an
instrument of labour”, as “a tiling, or a complex of tilings, which the
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
346
labourer interposes between himself and the subject of his labour, and
which serves as the conductor of his activity” ( Capital , I, 7, 1). The other
is the definition of “a machine”: “All fully developed machinery
consists of three essentially different parts, the motor mechanism, the
transmitting mechanism, and finally the tool or working machine . . .
The machine proper is therefore a mechanism that, after being set in
motion, performs with its tools the same operations that were formerly
done by the workman with similar tools” ( Capital , I 15, 1).
In the industrial revolution machinery replaced hand tools. And
while the motive power for the simplest machines is supplied by human
or animal muscle-power, once machinery began to be widely intro-
duced in industry men began to look for other motive power to drive
it — and discovered it in such inventions as the steam engine, the internal
combustion engine and the generation of electricity.
Marx observed that at first a manufactory contained a number of
separate machines set side by side, as in a weaving factory or a sewing
factory. But in various branches of industry there was soon built up “a
real machinery system ... to take the place of these independent
machines”. In this “the subject of labour goes through a connected
series of detail processes, that are carried out by a chain of machines
of various kinds, the one supplementing the other”. Finally, “as soon
as a machine executes, without man’s help, all the movements requisite
to elaborate the raw material, needing only attendance from him, we
have an automatic system of machinery, and one that is susceptible of
constant improvement in its details” (ibid). Marx concluded, in lan-
guage perhaps slightly reminiscent of William Blake, that “an organised
system of machines, in which motion is communicated by the trans-
mitting mechanism from a central automation, is the most developed
form of production by machinery. Here we have, in the place of the
isolated machine, a mechanical monster whose body fills whole
factories, and whose demon power, at first veiled under the slow and
measured motions of liis giant limbs, at length breaks out into the fast
and furious whirl of his countless working organs.”
In the machine system the role of the individual worker becomes
more and more reduced to that of “attendance” on the machine. He has
lost the freedom of the independent craftsman, and his own life of
personal decision and responsibility is lived only outside his working
hours. Even the serf who was forced to toil from dawn to dusk for the
whole of his life on the same piece of land was the owner and master of
his own implements of labour and did his own job in his own way. But
COMMUNISM
347
the worker who is employed to work in a machine system is forced to
match his own motions to those of the machine whose servant he has
become during his working hours.
Meantime someone has to take responsibility for management and
take decisions about production, and this function is separated from
that of attendance on machines. The subjection of the worker to the
machine, denial to the worker of all responsibility of management, and
separation of management from labour have been inescapable conse-
quences of machine production.
When the machine system began, the responsibility of management
was vested in the individual capitalist who purchased machines, hired
labour to work with them as he directed, and sold the product with a
view to realising a profit on his capital investment. Subsequently the
means of production owned by individual capitalists were taken over
(as Marx saw beginning and predicted would continue) by larger and
larger companies. These are, of course, purely corporate individuals —
not persons of flesh and blood, and born of women, but institutions
which people set up over themselves to regulate the social activities of
producing and distributing the means of life. These corporations own
and control blocks of capital and^ invest it, thereby increasingly
monopolising whole branches of production.
As a result, individual responsibility for directing labour and mana-
ging the disposal of products is separated from individual owners of
means of production just as it is from individual workmen. It falls on
those who hold controlling positions in the corporate capitalist insti-
tutions, and those whom they appoint. The situation that results is one
in which management of machine production remains distinct from
and antagonistic to labour, and the aim of management remains that of
realising the maximum profit for the corporate owner out of the sale
of the product. But if the owner is a fleshless corporation, the men in
control still receive the wherewithal to put on plenty of flesh.
A further and immensely far-reaching consequence of the develop-
ment of machine industry was noted by Marx. This is the development
of the sciences. And in this development, as he noticed, a change takes
place in the role of science in relation to industry. Initially, the sciences
studied the processes — mechanical, physical and chemical — employed
in industry, with a view to understanding them better and formulating
their laws. Inventions were rather due to the ingenuity of men engaged
in industry than introduced into industry by the creative intervention of
specialised scientists. But this situation changes into one in which
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
348
science becomes the pacemaker, the leading agency in the development
of techniques, rather than an auxiliary. This change is also a change in
the structure of institutions. From independent individuals interested in
studying the constitution of nature and the laws of operation of natural
forces, scientists become enrolled as members' and employees of great
research institutions feeding know-how into social production, and
these in turn are ever more closely linked with the great corporations
which own the means of production and direct the processes of industry.
Marx designated scientific research as itself one of the modern forces
of production, and one that makes itself more and more into the leading
revolutionising force. While others were regarding (and still regard)
the sciences, in abstraction from their social function, in the light of a
methodology for framing hypotheses which it is interesting to verify
or falsify, Marx appreciated from the outset the revolutionising role of
science in relation to social production. This led him to conclude that
the further development of the social forces of production, begun
under capitalism, would be such as to end the need for either arduous
or mindless labour, end the subjection of the worker to the machine and
the separation of the tasks of labour from managerial responsibilities,
and finally achieve the planned social production of abundance to
satisfy human needs, 'these consequences, as he saw clearly enough
even though not able to specify the exact forms which technological
development would take, must follow from science taking the leading
place among the forces of production. They are incompatible with the
survival of capitalist relations of production.
The character of the scientific-technological revolution which has
got under way in the second half of the twentieth century confirms
Marx’s forecasts and conclusions in the nineteenth century.
The principal feature of the contemporary technological revolution
is the leading role of science in relation to industry. This accounts
for the very rapid pace of technological progress today compared with
anything experienced before throughout the whole history of mankind.
Of course, though the change has been so marked during the past
twenty years, this is a situation which has been developing for some
time — for instance, radio technology and a lot of electrical technology,
or again medical techniques, were introduced as direct results of
scientific research. But now the long sequence of scientific discoveries
has rather suddenly culminated in a situation where the dominant
pattern is that of new techniques being fed into industry by science
rather than being evolved in industry with science undertaking investi-
COMMUNISM
349
gations attendant on them. This sudden change is dated, and recorded
in quantitative terms, as a sharp and accelerating increase in the rate of
introduction of technological innovations.
The innovations now introduced can be classified under three
headings. First, there is the introduction of new types of tools, for use
both in production and in research — including not only extremely
ingenious and adaptable implements and gadgets of one sort and
another, but new agencies (lasars, for example). Second, there is the
tapping of new power sources, namely nuclear energy. Third, there
is the introduction of techniques of automation and computation.
It is evident that, provided the forms of organisation and co-operation can
be established through which it can be done , the combined use of these
innovations would enable mankind as a whole to do a lot more than
could be done hitherto, and to know a lot more. All these means are
useful, moreover, not only for production but for research, which
itself will contribute new means to production and to the activities of
human beings — so that the prospect is not that of an advance followed
by settling down at a new level, but of continuous sustained advance.
Already, for example, people are building vehicles to take off into
surrounding space and expect soon to make themselves at home on the
moon. Possibly of greater practical consequence, new instrumentalities
of research are penetrating the secrets of the constitution of living
matter and of the formation of organisms on the earth. Evidently,
there has already been created the possibility of a vastly increased
production of things people need for far less expenditure of human
labour-power and physical wear and tear of human bodies, which
would bring to all individuals the material requisites, the time and the
opportunities for indulgence in tree activities on their own responsi-
bility and decision. The age-old condition of poverty of human
resources is already ended which made it necessary for anyone, let alone
the majority of the human race, to earn a mere pittance by the sweat of
his brow, or to live in an environment not thoroughly reshaped by
human agency to suit his needs and tastes, or to suffer the ravages of
disease or premature old age.
So far as the opening up of real possibilities is concerned, all this is
what Marx predicted would happen; and it has happened. But to
understand the problems of social reconstruction inherent in the pro-
cess of realisation of these possibilities, we must look more closely at
certain features of the contemporary technological revolution.
This revolution is not only a further development of the design and
350
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
use of machines, though that is included in it. It really is a revolution in
technology in as much as it introduces into the process of social pro-
duction something new to supersede machines, just as the machines of
the industrial revolution introduced something new to supersede
hand-labour. This gives us grounds to conclude that it requires as
great, if not greater, changes in the relations of men in the social use of
the new forces of production. To think otherwise is indeed to remain
blind to the implications of the technological changes going on under
our eyes.
To appreciate how revolutionary the technological revolution is we
must go back to definitions. The innovations comprise new or im-
proved tools, new and greater sources of motive power, and techniques
of automation. A machine, as we saw, consists of a motor transmitting
motion to a tool or set of tools. Bearing this in mind, it is clear that a
new element is added by the techniques of automation. These have been
defined (for instance by Sir Leo Bagrit in his 1964 Reith lectures, The
Age of Automation) as techniques of “communication, computation and
control”.
Of course, no social production of any sort is possible without
employment of these three interrelated functions. In social production
a number of people work to try to produce a product decided upon at
the start of the operation. For this purpose there must be communication
from one phase of the operation to another — so that, for example, a
new job can be started when the preceding job is done, or when
something goes wrong steps can be taken accordingly. There must be
computation y so that the operations of the job can be fitted together.
And there must be control sufficient to carry through all the motions
required for the work from beginning to end.
These functions have always been performed by human agency; and
they are so performed in machine production, since machines do not
include any apparatus to perform them for themselves, automatically
throughout, without the need for human intervention. But the tech-
niques of automation add these functions to the performance of the
material structures which men design and build for purposes of social
production.
In automated production the motive force employed sets in motion a
process of communication, computation and control guiding the
motions of the tools to which the motion is transmitted. This is a
system which replaces a machinery system, even of the most automatic
kind, just as a machinery system replaced a gang of hand-labourers.
COMMUNISM
351
An automated system contains a fourth component added to the
machine. And just as the machine system frees the productive worker
from having to transmit motion to the tool by his own bodily exertions
and to guide it with his hand, so does the automated system free him
from the burdens of ‘'attendance’ \
The very revolutionary character of the automated system, as com-
pared with all previous material means men have constructed for the
purposes of social production, is revealed by the fact that the relation-
ship which has always been the basic one within the social forces of
production, between men and their instruments of production, is
changed.
According to Marx’s definition, an instrument of labour is “a tiling or
complex of things which the labourer interposes between himself and
the subject of his labour as the conductor of his activity”. Marx stressed
that the distinguishing feature of human actvity in social production is
that men formulate a plan of what they want to do to the subject of
their activity. Having formed a plan in their heads, men use instruments
of labour for the purpose of altering the subject of labour in accordance
with their plan. It is in this sense that instruments are interposed as
conductors of human purposive activity. Men set themselves a task (or
some men are set a task by others), and then use the instruments of
labour to carry it out , as the conductors of the human activity of carrying
out alterations of the environment corresponding to the tasks we set
ourselves. It is in this way that men have used first very crude tools and
subsequently elaborate machine systems as instruments of labour. But
with a complete automated system we do not thus set ourselves a task
and then use instruments of labour for our carrying out of the task. No,
we set a task to the system which we have designed and built to perform such a
task for us y and it carries it out for us. Automated systems are instruments of
production designed to carry out the tasks we set them. And such
“instruments of production” are different from the “instruments of
labour” which were formerly the only known instruments of produc-
tion. They supersede the instruments of labour the operative use of
which entails a task set to the labourer, which the labourer must per-
form by his own exertions, the expenditure of his labour-power.
What we have to realise, therefore, is that the scientific-technological
revolution now being begun by men is altering the part which men
themselves have to play in the process of social production. Men have
always been both designers and artificers of instruments of production
and labourers who use them as instruments of labour. Now men’s part
352
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
is to design, build and supervise the operations of instruments of
production which can operate effectively without the intervention of
men as labourers equipped with instruments of labour.
3. THE COMMUNIST PROGRAMME
Hitherto mankind has been split into two antagonistic parts in the
production process. On the one hand there have been the people (the
majority) who had to wear themselves out wielding the tools or attend-
ing the machines. On the other hand there have been the owners and
bosses who governed their fellow men and appropriated a large part
of their labour. The communist programme follows from the fact that
this is becoming an anchronism. For if the technological revolution is
pushed on to embrace more and more of social production, there will
be a new sort of work, consisting of people co-operating to design,
build and supervise material systems to produce for them what they
have agreed they want; and a new sort of management consisting of
the co-operative arrangements people make to build these material
systems and keep them in motion. The labourer who is set a task to
perform with instruments of labour will become redundant, and the
boss at whose behest the task is set will become redundant too.
What therefore becomes necessary is for men to agree amongst
themselves on the purpose to be served by production, and co-operate
to design, build and supervise the instruments which will carry out our
purpose. This purpose can only be the satisfaction of human needs. To
achieve it, everyone must work to the best of his ability to help with
the design and maintenance of the productive system.
The guiding principle of a communist society thus turns out to be
no unworldly ideal, but the statement of how human relations will
have to be arranged to adapt to the uses of a very highly automated
system of production. To build such a system is not a problem of
building utopia, but a problem of engineering.
If, then, we care to follow Dr. Popper in importing the same word,
“engineering”, into the definition of problems of managing social
institutions, we can conclude that the engineering involved in building
a fully automated system of production sets engineering problems as
regards social institutions, namely, to adapt these to the requirements of
people getting on with production engineering and using the instru-
ments of production. The problems of “social engineering” are
formulated inadequately if we pose them only abstractly, as problems
COMMUNISM
353
of changing institutions so as to allow people “security and freedom”.
For what is necessary for this security and freedom? It is to adapt the
social institutions to the system of material production. Dr. Popper and
other objectors to communism have failed to notice the fundamental
fact, that it is impossible to solve the problems of production engin-
eering which will enable us to produce abundance for human needs
without breaking up those institutions through which one class of
men exploits the labour of another. For there is a formal contradiction
between some men setting others to work on tasks of labour to pro-
duce goods which they appropriate and sell for profit, and a production
system in which the tasks of labour are transferred to the material
instruments of production.
The fact is, that a society in which full use is made of modern
methods of production can only be a communist society. Conversely,
the full use of the productive techniques which are now being evolved
and introduced can never be achieved unless we succeed in changing
our relations of production into communist relations, unless classes
are abolished and all men co-operate on the communist principle “from
each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. Hence, on
the one hand, the development of the full economic potential of produc-
tive techniques now depends on the political struggle to overcome the
capitalist rule which upholds capitalist relations of production. We shall
never succeed in carrying those techniques forward unless we take up
and win the political struggle for communism, with all its difficulties
and dangers. On the other hand, the economic fact that the greed for
capitalist profit and the competition of capitalism with socialism, as
well as of rival blocks of capital with one another, drives capitalist
managements forward to improve productive techniques will face the
masses of people more and more urgently with the necessity of political
action to defend themselves from the consequences of capitalist free
enterprise.
That communism is the social form necessary for the full use of
modern techniques does not imply that communism will be achieved
simply as the result of modern techniques being introduced. Far from
it, for communism can come, if it does come, only as a result of pro-
longed political struggles. And while the introduction of new tech-
niques may stimulate and aid that struggle, at the same time lack of
resolution and defeat in the struggle may inhibit and in the end entirely
prevent the introduction and full use of techniques. The point is that
the goal of communism, and the ideas we can already project of how a
354
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
communist society would be practically arranged, are not dreamed up
as ideals of utopia but are strictly deducible from the actual character
of technological progress and the requirements for continuing it. A
communist society is not utopia, but one in which relations of produc-
tion and methods of distributing the social product have become
adapted to the productive forces created by the contemporary scientific
and technological revolution.
We can proceed to examine in more detail consequences of an
advanced technology, which further define the character of a com-
munist society (which is nothing but a society employing such tech-
nology) and differentiate it from earlier modes of production.
Products will no longer be produced as commodities for exchange.
For the production complexes from which different products issue
cannot exchange these products as men do, as values embodying
labour, but must rather be programmed to put them into distribution
according to a plan. And this plan of supply of needs will be computed
like everything else in the production process in accordance with the
purpose for which men have designed the production process and set
it in motion. Commodity-production will therefore be entirely
superseded. The mode of production in which men or groups of men
produced goods by their labour and exchanged the products of labour
will be superseded by a mode of production in which the products are
distributed amongst men according to their needs. One rather striking
consequence is, of course, that there will be no such thing as money, as
the measure of value and medium of exchange.
Advanced technology likewise supersedes the division of labour
amongst human beings which every invention of new instruments of
labour has hitherto entailed — and of which commodity production and
private property in means of production were consequences. New
instruments of labour mean new jobs, and since the instrument is
specially constructed for the job so must the labourer specialise in
the use of that instrument. The multiplication of instruments of labour
gives rise to the division of labour amongst the human beings who make
and use them. In the fully automated system, on the other hand, the
division of detailed and specialised functions in the operations of
social production is transferred in its entirety from human beings to the
material instruments of production, the various parts of which each
specialises in its particular job without requiring any man to specialise
in the same way. As for men, one man will not be required to specialise
in turning a screw or tightening a bolt, another in adding up figures and
COMMUNISM
355
another in the work of overall management of a production complex,
but all will share the common human function of being designers,
masters and beneficiaries of the instruments of social production. This
does not mean, of course, that all will have to do the same things or
be exactly like each other. On the contrary, the differentiation of
human abilities, pursuits and enjoyments is not the same thing as
division of labour in social production, and its condition is that
individuals should be freed from the stultifying effects of the division
oflabour.
Ending the division of labour implies two specially important
consequences, on which Marx laid considerable emphasis. One is the
abolition of the division between town and countryside. This does not
mean that all land will be covered with streets and buildings — though
with new techniques of food production it may well happen that
agriculture as we know it will disappear and the earth be turned into a
sort of park (those who find it tame will perhaps go mountaineering on
Mars or swimming in a sea of ammonia on Jupiter). It implies that the
division between rural communities labouring on producing food-
stuffs and raw materials, and urban ones consuming their produce, with
the superior amenities concentrated in the latter, will be ended. This
raises an issue among the most pressing we face in the contemporary
world. It means ending the division between “underdeveloped” and
“developed” nations, where the former are kept down as suppliers of
food and raw materials to the latter. It means raising the productivity
and welfare of all human groups to a common level. It also implies, as
has often been pointed out lately, instituting rational measures of
population control.
The other consequence Marx stressed is the abolition of the division
between mental and manual labour. Once again, this does not mean
that there will be no difference between mental and manual skills — for
obviously this difference is inherent in the circumstance that people
have brains and hands, and no doubt some people will always take
more delight in the one than in the other. For example, there will no
doubt always be a difference between, say, people who especially like
doing higher mathematics and use their hands mostly to scribble
symbols on bits of paper, and people who especially like painting
pictures or making sculptures and use use their brains to guide their
hands in producing the effects they want — though perhaps the latter
will not remain ignorant of the uses of the calculus and the former be
well capable of doing jobs about the house. At the risk of labouring
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
356
the point, I repeat that such differences in individual pursuits and skills
are not the same thing as division of labour as it has been forced on
people hitherto by the development of the forces of production. What
the abolition of the division of mental and manual labour means is the
abolition of the division between people who act as managers and
others whom they manage, and of the division between the common
herd who labour with their hands and are educated for not much else,
and the elite who are educated to other pursuits.
Finally, all these changes imply what Marx and Engels described as
“the withering away of the state”. In Engels* words, “the government
of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the
conduct of processes of production” ( Socialism , Utopian and Scientific y
Chapter 3). Managing the general affairs of society will no longer
entail any exercise of coercion, to force one set of people to perform a
task of labour under the orders of another, or more generally to force
one set of people to compromise or subordinate their interests in what
they obtain from social production in deference to the interests of
another. Hence no “public force** will be required to exercise and
enforce its authority over individuals and, as Engels said in The
Origin of the Family , Private Property and the State (Chapter 9), the
“whole state machinery** will be put “where it will then belong — into
the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning-wheel and the bronze
>>
axe .
Naturally, there will still be social management. It will be a co-
operative management, in which everyone has a say or vote, and in
which what is set in train will be done in the light of thorough
computation of requirements and consequences, and not blindly as at
present, according to the will of one interest against another. The
concurrence of individuals in what is decided will be secured by educa-
tion, habit and argument, by each recognising his responsibility as a
member of society, and without holding a big stick over anyone or
depriving anyone of his opportunities for cultivating his individual
bent. This means, incidentally, that individual responsibility will indeed
become the general rule of an open society. Not only will the social
organisation grant to individuals responsibility rather than making
them do whatever they are told, but this individual responsibility will
be the main thing on which the whole co-operative social organisation
depends.
The idea that communism is a mere utopia is attributable to the fact
that for a very long time there were imaginative thinkers who dreamed
COMMUNISM
357
of a communist society although there existed no practical possibility
of realising it. Conscious of the irrationality and brutality of people
oppressing and exploiting one another instead of co-operating for the
common welfare, they dreamed of a society in which all would
co-operate to produce social wealth, and wealth would be owned in
common and shared out according to individual needs. These imagin-
ings have been rightly regarded as mere utopias because there was no
technological basis in prospect for the communist organisation of
society, and so nothing could be done to organise for it politically.
Communism was not a practical proposition, only an impractical
ideal. But in modem conditions it has become not only practically
possible but necessary . It is a practical possibility because we know how
to set about building the technological basis, and know what political
moves to make to start changing social institutions in the communist
direction. And it is necessary because unless we start moving towards
communism we shall be hindered from developing and using modem
technology.
But even so, many remain of opinion that communism is something
to be realised, if realised at all, so far in the future that it is unpractical
to start seriously organising for it at present. One reason for this opinion
is to be found in the contrast between the selfish modes of behaviour at
present in vogue and the socially responsible behaviour which would
have to become universal if a communist society was ever to work.
It is thought that if “human nature” is to change so much it will take a
very long time to change, and meantime we had best accept unchang-
ing human nature for what it is and always has been.
These opinions, which those who hold them regard as realistic
facing of facts, are really based on nothing but a refusal to face facts.
As regards “human nature”, it may be stated at once that we posit no
such extraordinary change as is imagined. We do not suggest that
people must change from caring only for themselves to caring for
others, for in fact most people have always cared for both. We are only
of opinion that if there is interesting work to be done people will like
doing it and want to do it if they get the chance; and that if needs can
be satisfied without people having to compete with one another to
get their satisfactions they will not go out of their way to grab things
from each other.
It is not Communists who ignore the facts of human nature, but
sceptics about communism who ignore the fact of the very rapid pace of the
contemporary scientific-technological revolution . This fact demands that at
358
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
our peril we do something now to cope with its consequences. The
need for organisation for that purpose is urgent. And in face of this
urgency, the bungling and complacency of politicians and business
managers as they practise 4 ‘social engineering” in the capitalist world
is alarming.
If technology could be developed and put straight into full use
without check, it would probably not be unrealistic to say that a con-
dition of world communism could be established within fifty years.
Allowing for plenty of time for necessary social readjustments, it
would perhaps be more realistic to put the period of change-over at,
say, a hundred and fifty years — which is not long on the scale of histori-
cal change, though occupying the energies of several generations. So
political organisation to carry through these readjustments is not
utopian politics oriented to a far-distant ideal goal, but the practical
politics of the century we Hue in. The fact we have to face is not that
communism is such a long-term goal as not to be worth bothering
about at present, but that the actual and accelerating rate of technologi-
cal change is already so impetuous that we will face the most serious
social consequences if we do not commence the practical organisation
of communism.
Technological change cannot be halted without (as Dr. Popper so
eloquently puts it) destroying our civilisation. So our civilisation must
be adapted to technological change. The technological revolution will
within a few decades render most of the old equipment, the current
layout of services, and the current ways of training, directing and
deploying labour completely obsolete. Their retention will not stop the
advance of technology, but it will inevitably cause greater and greater
difficulty and conflict in the management of social production and
distribution. Increasing mismanagement is the prospect if the bosses of
corporations competing for private profit try to manage in their own
way an economy which requires integration in a single plan of social
production. If it is left to them we are in for worse and worse conflicts
as it becomes more and more evident to the masses of working people
that their affairs are being mismanaged. Worse still, there will inevit-
ably be continuous international conflict as people in the “under-
developed” countries grow more and more intolerant of the contrast
between their poverty and the affluence and greed of those who,
pretending to aid them, forcibly intervene in their affairs to hold them
down. What is desperately urgent is to establish right away that measure
of democratic control by informed working-class organisations which
COMMUNISM
359
can begin the planning of production in the industrially developed
countries and offer real aid to the underdeveloped.
Nearly everyone recognises that the present is a time of transition.
The claim of Marxism is to have demonstrated scientifically where
we are heading, and to have set out the real problems of the transition.
The communist programme is the imaginative forecast of the road
we must take, not because it is our inexorable fate, but because the
means we are creating to produce our needs demand it. The modern
working-class movement, able on the basis of scientific information to
see the road clearly in imagination so as to take it in practice, can by its
mass democratic organisation sweep out of office the fumbling admini-
strators of the old order, and bring into actual existence the rational
and open society which was only a dream for so many who have
gone before.
5
THE TRANSITION TO COMMUNISM
I. DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST PLANNING
If we discount his more phrenetic utterances about returning to
tribalism and thence “to the beasts”, Dr. Popper’s chief misgivings
about the communist programme arise over two points : the dangers
inherent in economic planning and in attempting to control thoughts.
But on these contentious points, too, his arguments can scarcely pass
muster as “rational”.
He objects to “planning on a very large scale”, such as Communists
advocate, because it “must cause considerable inconvenience to many
people” (PH. 89). If this were a rational argument he must say why it
must ; but he does not, and merely asserts it with all the perseverance of a
Conservative backbencher.
He then goes on to say that to get a plan operated the planner “must
suppress unreasonable objections” — which is true enough. “But with
them he must invariably suppress reasonable criticism too.” In the
name of reason, why should one invariably have to overrule reasonable
criticism whenever unreasonable objections are overruled? It is only by
entering into critical discussion, and making it as reasonable as one can,
that it is possible to decide which objections are in fact unreasonable.
Dr. Popper lays it down that the planner can never allow any dis-
cussion at all about the plan. In that case it is only too probable that he
will “cause considerable inconvenience to many people” and his plan
will come to grief. But those who seek to operate “planning on a very
large scale” will, if they know their business, do exactly what Dr.
Popper says they cannot do (because he says only “social engineers”
who operate planning on a very small scale can do it) : they will make it
their business “to look out for mistakes, to find them, to bring them
into the open, to analyse them, and to learn from them” (PH. 88). And
to this end they will encourage “reasonable criticism” in every way
they can.
Dr. Popper does, it is true, attempt to assign a reason why learning
from mistakes is possible only in small-scale or “piecemeal” planning,
and not in “holistic” planning “on a very large scale”. He says there is
a “technical” reason: “Since so much is done at a time, it is impossible
THE TRANSITION TO COMMUNISM
361
to say which particular measure is responsible for any of the results"
(PH. 88-9). This “technical" reason is on a par with saying that pro-
ductive apparatus must never be let grow too large and complicated,
for if so it will become impossible to fmd the cause of a breakdown.
Dr. Popper should certainly have known better than that, for it is the
reasoning of a man unacquainted with scientific technology. Just as
very large-scale production engineering has to master the intricacies of
how the many different parts of an apparatus fit together in their
operations to produce the desired results, so must competent planners
master the intricacies of how the many different things done at a time
fit together to produce results. Indeed, the science of planning as it is
being successfully developed now in socialist countries is concerned
with precisely that problem. The result is not “considerable incon-
venience" but lightening of labour and increase of articles of consump-
tion.
From these very insufficient objections to “planning on a very large
scale" Dr. Popper deduces what he takes to be the worst and most fatal
consequences of indulgence in such planning. For this purpose he
introduces a premise with which one can hardly disagree. It is “im-
possible", he says, “to centralise all that knowledge which is dis-
tributed over many individual minds" (PH. 89-90). So what follows?
The “holistic planner", who will not listen to anyone else’s advice and
supresses all criticism, reasonable as well as unreasonable, denies him-
self access to accumulated knowledge. Therefore “he must try to
simplify his problems". And refusing to let other people express
themselves, he must take energetic steps to shut them up and “to
control and stereotype interests and beliefs by education and propa-
ganda. But this attempt to exercise power over minds must destroy the
last possibility of finding out what people really think, for it is clearly
incompatible with the free expression of thought, especially of critical
thought. Ultimately, it must destroy knowledge" (PH. 90). So “plan-
ning on a very large scale" leads first to tyrannical measures of thought-
control and suppression of all freedom of thought, and then to the
destruction of all the human knowledge on which successful manage-
ment must rely.
A less reasonable argument than this would be hard to put together.
For since it is plainly impossible for a single “holistic planner" to
know everything relevant to the operation of a successful plan,
planning demands the widest consultation amongst all those people in
whose minds relevant knowledge resides. A person responsible for
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
362
planning will therefore not “simplify his problems” by shutting
everyone else up, but will do his utmost to draw in the maximum
number of people to help. The idea that planning on a very large scale
should ever be done by a single “holistic planner”, or plans be made up
and dictated without consultation by an institute of “centralised
power”, is merely one of Dr. Popper’s fantasies, with the aid of which he
works himself up into a state of alarm and indignation about com-
munism. It is obvious that large-scale planning demands a very far-
flung apparatus of consultation at all levels, between economists,
administrators, scientists, technicians, works managers and ordinary
workers.
The fact that mistakes of over-centralisation were made in planning
in the Soviet Union is no excuse for Dr. Popper’s nonsense, even
though he did not know at the time he was writing that these mistakes
would soon be remedied. Right from the start in the Soviet Union
planning was done on the basis of wide and elaborate consultation.
This was the basis for a real science of planning being instituted there,
and for earlier mistakes being later corrected.
But even though Dr. Popper’s charges against planning must be
ruled out of court (except, indeed, in the Wonderland court of his own
book, where he is not only the prosecutor but the judge and jury too)
there are real problems connected with planning, and related problems
connected with the control of thoughts, which are worthy of attention.
Planning on a very large scale has become necessary because of the
socialised character of modern industrial production. The fact is that
Marxists are not doctrinaire busybodies who want to make everyone
do as we say instead of letting them do as they please. We advocate
planning because it is necessary, as a condition for managing modem
production to meet human needs. But how can planning be made
effective and at the same time not encroach on democratic rights and
the freedom of the individual?
The reason why planning on a large scale has become necessary for
the use of modern forces of production can be appreciated by com-
paring modem conditions of production with those that have gone
before.
In primitive conditions of subsistence economy, for example,
questions of planning hardly arose. People produced what they could
with their primitive equipment and consumed it as they went along.
Planning only came in by way of trying to preserve as much stock as
possible, so as to have a chance of survival when the next season came
THE TRANSITION TO COMMUNISM
363
round. Again, there could not be much planning in the commodity
production of peasants and handicraftsmen, since these people could
only go to the market and sell their product for whatever price was
offered. Individual merchants planned to buy cheap and sell dear, but
there could be no overall planning. Feudal lords planned busily but
their plans took the form of conspiracies to grab each other’s lands and
possessions. When capitalist production appeared on the scene, large
numbers of workers were collected together and set to work in indus-
trial enterprises, and within these enterprises a great deal of planning
was at once required — aimed at keeping production going, increasing
it and increasing the rate of exploitation. The product was all taken to
the market, just as with pre-capitalist commodity production. And it
was from this circumstance that the need for some kind of overall
planning of production and distribution became apparent. As Engels
pointed out in Socialism , Utopian and Scientific , a contradiction now
became manifest between the planning of production in each indi-
vidual enterprise and the anarchy of production within the sphere of
production and distribution as a whole.
The necessity for overall planning of modern production arises from
two related conditions, both of which Marx analysed in the three
volumes of Capital First, production is now divided into two great
departments, producing respectively means of production and goods
for consumption. Unless due proportions (which are calculable
mathematically) are maintained between the production of these
two departments, production as a whole must suffer dislocations and
interruptions. For instance, the production of consumer goods cannot
be maintained or increased unless sufficient means of production are
produced for the purpose. And again, if the effective demand for
consumer goods is not sufficient to use up all the means of production
that are being produced, then production in the department producing
means of production will be interrupted because its products are not
for the time being wanted. Therefore, secondly, production will suffer
interruptions unless arrangements are also made so that the members of
society are actually able to buy and consume all the consumer goods
that are produced. Clearly, neither of these necessary conditions can
be satisfied if every independent enterprise is left to plan its own pro-
duction entirely at the will of its own management. There must be
some sort of overall economic plan.
Throughout that phase of capitalist production known as laissez
faire this need for overall planning was denied by capitalist manage-
364 TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
ments. Their idea (worked out for them by professional economists)
was that the conditions of the market would automatically bring about
the necessary adjustments. For instance, if relatively too much or too
little of something was being produced, the market conditions would
automatically cause capital in search of profit to flow from one branch
of production to another. This sort of adjustment proved in practice
extremely painful and injurious, and took place only through a
series of economic crises with wastage of productive equipment and
unemployment. Today, when whole branches of production have
come to be monopolised by very big capitalist corporations which plan
their own production and marketing arrangements in a big way, the
corporation managements have come to recognise the need for at
least a certain amount of overall economic planning (and professional
economists have duly criticised old-fashioned economic theories and
worked out new ones). At the same time, the corporations consider
that they can do whatever is necessary themselves, with the aid of the
state over which they exercise so considerable a measure of control.
Recent experience is making plain the limitations of monopoly-
capitalist economic planning. This so-called “indicative planning” is
not so much planning as forecasting. On the basis of data about past
and present resources forecasts are made of what would have to be
produced in all the main branches of production, and how it would
have to be marketed, in order to bring about a given rate of increase of
total production. Government then takes various measures by way of
offering incentives such as credits and tax relief to encourage the enter-
prises concerned to behave according to the forecast, and at the same
time to gear nationalised industries and services to it. But there is no
overall control to ensure that what is forecasted is done. Experience
to date has shown that in no case are the forecasts of a capitalist national
plan ever realised. Something always goes wrong — even though not
always so rapidly as was the case with the national plan announced in
1966 by the Labour Government in Britain, which collapsed within a
few months.
It might be thought, incidentally, from his strictures about “planning
on a large scale”, that Dr. Popper would disapprove of all such planning
as altogether too “holistic”. However, he professes to disapprove of
laissez faire and to approve of capitalist overall planning on the good
grounds that it is still “piecemeal social engineering” and contains so
little of the element of compulsion . But it is in these very qualities which
meet with his approval that its limitations show themselves. In the
THE TRANSITION TO COMMUNISM
365
fierce market competition of so many profit-seeking enterprises it is
not possible for them all to keep to plan, even if their managements
intended it, and the same types of maladjustment as have always
shown up in capitalist production continue to take place. Meantime
the organised workers who demand that conditions of work, wages
and social services shall be improved are subjected to a restraint and
compulsion not applied to their employers, on the grounds that their
demands will divert resources from production to consumption,
render industries uncompetitive especially on export markets and
prevent the national economy from paying its way. If capitalist
planning increases employment it increases the incidence of industrial
disputes, so that some begin to think a dose of planned unemployment
would be advisable as a means of bringing industrial workers to
heel.
By one of those twists of the meaning of words which are the
stock-in-trade of capitalist apologetics, capitalist planning has been
called “democratic”. As well as never working, it suffers from the
drawback of being undemocratic. For it is most emphatically not
under democratic control. The job of drawing up the plan is done by
experts of the corporations and the government, and its operation is
left to the managements of the corporations and nationalised industries,
without any exercise of democratic control apart from drawing in a few
trade union officials. To say that this represents a measure of demo-
cratic control over the managements of corporations, or that it is demo-
cratic because permanent civil servants constitute key personnel, is to
accept a very meagre and remote form of popular control as sufficient
to qualify as “democracy”. Many advocates of capitalist planning (for
example, Professor Galbraith in his B.B.C. Reith lectures of 1966) now
recognise this fact, and are saying that “democratic planning” is
nonsense because planning is an expert business and experts should be
controlled only by their fellow experts. Others, however, continue to
maintain that capitalist planning is democratic because economic
decisions remain voluntary, and the plan only offers guidance to the
corporations and not instructions; it is thought democratic to allow
individual decision of this voluntary kind and undemocratic to use
compulsion. But why it is democratic to allow decisions affecting the
livelihood of millions to be taken by a handful of managers exempt
from democratic control, and undemocratic to ensure that what is
planned for the public welfare is actually done, are two questions never
answered by the champions of capitalist democracy.
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
366
The need for socialist planning is the need for planning which in-
cludes provisions to ensure the carrying out of plans, and which
operates under democratic control. These things are connected.
Measures to secure the democratisation of economic decisions are at
the same time measures to ensure that the decisions are well planned
and are carried out.
The abstract definition of “socialism” as “public ownership of the
means of production and exchange” requires completion by defining
the object of public ownership as bringing the management of social
production under the control of democratic organisations and planning it
for the satisfaction of human needs. On the other hand, the fear of socialist
planning is the fear that if ownership of all major enterprises is taken
over by the state, the state will dictate a plan to the nation and arbi-
trarily compel everyone to accept it and work for it, so that there will
be even less democratic control than is the case under capitalist private
ownership.
The spectacle of Soviet people not only bearing up under the rigours
of socialist planning, but holding discussions to improve its methods and
doing very well for themselves, has led many who expressed these fears
to admit it has not turned out so badly as they expected. Some now
try to account for this by saying there is not after all much difference
between having production managed by private corporations and
having it managed by state trusts. Such an assurance is calculated to
have a calming effect on those who believe we must at all costs hold
out in a last-ditch struggle against socialist planning, and at the same
time supplies a new argument against socialists who advocate a struggle
to advance from capitalism to socialism. For it is argued that if capitalism
now equals management by large corporations it amounts to very
much the same thing as socialism, which equals management by large
state trusts.
These points were urged strongly by Professor Galbraith in his
Reith Lectures. He said that the methods adopted by state trusts to
plan production in the Soviet Union and by corporations to plan
production in other industrial countries are becoming more and more
alike. It is not true, however. The methods of planning production in
the Soviet Union differ from those in capitalist countries in at least
two important respects. First, the plan is decided upon on the basis of very
wide consultation amongst democratic organisations , and the managements
responsible at all levels have to operate within the framework of democratically
decided objectives . Second, there is democratic control over the carrying out of
THE TRANSITION TO COMMUNISM
367
the plan , to ensure that measures are taken to carry it out. As a result,
the objective of planning in the Soviet Union is the supply of what
people need and its delivery to its destination. And what is planned is
actually achieved. The basis of socialist planning is democratic control
by popular organisation over the production and distribution of what
people need, and “public ownership” is the form within which this
democratic control is effected.
Socialist planning for social welfare requires the building of a very
elaborate institutional framework within which the plan is formulated
and carried out. This is, of course, something entirely unlike Dr.
Popper’s “brave new world” fantasy of a single “holistic planner”
issuing orders. There are required institutions of research and teaching,
institutions of economic science, working out the theory of planning
as an “exact science” employing mathematical techniques. There are
required interlocked institutions for the central and regional formula-
tion of plans, closely tied up with instituted consultation with public
organisations, trade unions, works managements and so on. And insti-
tutions are required to supervise and check up on the carrying out of
plans, tied up with the production institutions (factories, farms, rail-
ways, local government services, and so on) which carry out the plan.
When such an institutional framework is built for planning, as it has
been in the Soviet Union, it becomes evident that the idea that expert
management is incompatible with democratic control is only one of
the latest illusions of capitalist ideology. For in this framework are
combined, on the one hand expertise, the making of economic
planning into an expert business employing highly trained technicians,
and on the other hand democratic control.
These considerations show what has to be done to progress from
capitalist to socialist institutions in the advanced industrial countries.
There can be no question of smashing up all the institutions, as Dr.
Popper imagines would be done by a revolution which transfers
political power to the working class. There already exists in the insti-
tutions of research and technology, in the managerial apparatus of the
great corporations, and in the organisations of nationalised industries
and municipal and social services the basis of the apparatus of socialist
planning. The great step that has to be taken is that of the institution oj
democratic control by popular organisation , which is lacking at present. To
“raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class” is, exactly as The
Communist Manifesto said, “to win the battle of democracy”.
368
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
2. FROM SOCIALISM TO COMMUNISM
A major part of socialist planning must always be concerned, not
directly with the production of consumer goods and services, but with
the production of means of production. And where these are insuffi-
cient that department of production must take high priority if later on
a greater part of consumers' needs are to be satisfied. The controlling
aim is to plan the increase of production so as to meet all individual
needs from it. This controlling aim implies that all socialist planning is
planning alomg the road to communism , when such absolute abundance
will be produced that “to each according to his need” will become the
maxim governing the social organisation.
This, of course, is why Marxist parties generally call themselves
“Communist Parties”. Communism is the controlling aim of all their
politics. And, incidentally, it demonstrates another big difference, and
perhaps the biggest difference of all, between socialist democratic
planning and the planning which already goes on in capitalist countries.
The latter has certainly no aim of advancing towards communism,
but presupposes the retention of social relations entirely incompatible
with it, and is therefore likely to get into the worse confusion the
higher the level of technological advance. At present the name “Com-
munist” is not widely understood; but it will have to be made better
understood if we are to cope with the problems which technology is
setting.
Marx described socialism, in the Critique of the Gotha Programme , as
“the first phase of communist society”. It is this because already, when
means of production are taken into social ownership and socialist
planning is instituted, production ceases to be controlled by the profit
obtainable by private owners from selling the products, and begins to
be planned instead for the satisfaction of human needs. Communism is
the organisation of social production to satisfy human needs. In its
first imperfect or socialist phase production is not yet sufficient to
satisfy all needs, and a fully communist society emerges only when this
limitation has been overcome.
At the same time, socialism can be described as a transition phase
between capitalism and communism, because when capitalist owner-
ship and control is first abolished many conditions remain, carried
over from capitalism, which will also have to be abolished before
communism is fully instituted. As Marx put it, “what we have to deal
with here is a communist society, not as if it had developed on a basis
THE TRANSITION TO COMMUNISM
369
of its own , but on the contrary as it emerges from capitalist society , which
is thus in every respect tainted economically, morally and intellectually
with the hereditary diseases of the old society from whose womb it is
emerging . . . these deficiencies are unavoidable in the first phase of
communist society when it is just emerging after prolonged birthpangs
from capitalist society.”
The chief of “these unavoidable deficiencies” is the retention of the
wages system. People enter into agreements with employing organisa-
tions (state trusts and the like) to work for so many hours for so much
pay. What they receive to satisfy their needs depends therefore chiefly
on their work. So far as the worker is concerned, he gets paid for his
work, and receives as much as he can earn by enhancing his skills,
finding jobs and working diligently— just as in capitalist society. The
retention of the wages system is a social necessity because, so long as
the social product is not yet sufficient to satisfy all needs as of right, the
distribution of the social product cannot but be controlled by the socialist
principle “from each according to his ability, to each according to his
work”.
Of course, this principle is never applied with full consistency and
rigour. That would mean that children, old people and the sick would
all have to be maintained out of individual earnings and savings;
wheareas socialist governments always do their best to apply the
communist principle by doing all that can be done to meet their needs
out of public funds. And numerous other social services are provided,
of which the enjoyment does not depend on earnings and the benefits
supplement earnings. Indeed, a good deal on these lines is already done
under capitalism, where social necessity reinforced by working-class
demands already compels the ruling class to concur with the intro-
duction of these first instalments of communism. Capitalists have, how-
ever, always been grudging of social services, which they think both cost
too much and sap the moral fibre of the recipients. They administer
them so far as possible on a contributory insurance basis and make the
wage-earners pay as much as possible of the cost. In a socialist society,
on the other hand, social services are continually expanded and it is not
thought desirable to run any of them as an insurance business.
The wages system, reinforced by social services, is, then, and must
be carried over from capitalism to socialism. With it there are inevitably
carried over many old habits and ways of thinking — habits of grabbing
whatever one can for oneself at the expense of others, of caring pri-
marily for one’s livelihood and letting others look after their own if
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
370
they can, and ways of thinking which go with these habits. Such
phenomena of individual consciousness would in any case be likely to
persist through inertia, since it always takes a long time for new modes
of consciousness to spread amongst all individuals. But they are en-
couraged by the retention of the wages system. It is therefore not
surprising, though disturbing, to find that in a socialist society many of
the most hateful phenomena of capitalism persist, including ambitious
people climbing up over the backs of their fellows, people in jobs
commanding status despising those below them and expecting defer-
ence from them, and so on. A good Communist cannot lose confidence
in the advance of humanity towards communism because of this, for
it is only to be expected. But because it is only to be expected, he will
not therefore take up an attitude of accepting and concurring in it,
and still less behave like that himself.
At the same time, the wages system in socialist society differs
fundamentally from that under capitalism. The chief difference does not
show itself on the surface, in the make-up of the wages packet or in the
procedure of passing it from the wages-clerk to the wage-earner, but
only in the overall mode of development of social production. It
consists in the fact that wages are no longer the price paid by the em-
ployer for the purchase of the worker’s labour-power, but are the
worker’s entitlement, paid over to him in the form of money from the
employing organisation, to receive so much in value out of the total
social product in proportion to the work he has contributed. Labour-
power is no longer bought and sold. And its value, that is to say, the
value of the goods and services required to maintain fitness for work, no
longer enters into the determination of wages. For labour-power is no
longer a commodity, and wages no longer the price of that commodity.
Exploitation, in the technical sense of the worker contributing unpaid
labour-time as surplus value to the employer, has been ended.
It may be objected that such theoretical considerations are meaning-
less in human terms, since the worker will feel just as much exploited
so long as he has to work too hard and gets too little for it. They are far
from meaningless; for what they mean is that under socialism the
amount the worker receives is not determined by a bargain with an
employer who buys his labour-power at so much an hour, but by a
calculation of how much of the social product is currently available
to distribute as goods and services for consumption. As the social
product increases, so must the workers’ welfare improve. The settle-
ment of wages is no longer an issue of class struggle. Quite literally,
THE TRANSITION TO COMMUNISM
371
the workers are working for themselves, not for the profit af an
employer.
It is sometimes objected too that in socialist society exploitation
continues, just as under capitalism, because the workers by their labour
contribute to the upkeep of a large “class of officials and bureaucrats”.
These are described as exploiters who direct the workers* labour and
appropriate the surplus value just as capitalist exploiters do. While it is
true that any system of management permits individual peculation
unless something is done to stop it, it is nevertheless absurd to allege
that payment of officials, administrators and managers represents a form
of exploitation of the workers. Of course these people have to be paid,
because they do necessary work. If some types of work are paid more
than others, that may or may not be unjust, but it is not exploitation.
Supporting an apparatus of management out of the values produced
by productive labour is no more exploitation of labour than it is
exploitation to reinvest a proportion of the values produced in the
production of fresh means of production instead of distributing the
entire product in consumer goods and services.
Naturally, to keep socialist production going, and to expand it,
it is necessary that social labour should continually produce a surplus
over and above what is currently paid out in wages, for investment in
future production, for costs of management, and for provision of
social services. This shows, incidentally, that the insistence in current
Soviet planning methods on enterprises showing “a profit” does not
represent the reintroduction of capitalism, but is an item in the efficient
planning of production for welfare, which is heading straight for
communism.
That socialist planning is heading for communism means that this
planning progresses towards planning the full satisfaction of needs .
Communism grows out of socialism in the course of a period of plan-
ning, the length of which must depend on the level of social produc-
tion from which it started. The transition is made by gradually trans-
ferring supplies from the sphere of goods to be bought out of earnings
to the sphere of free services. When social production is producing
sufficient resources for the completion of that process, we have arrived.
Thereafter there can be no question of paying people for their work,
but only of the provision of needs as a social service to the benefits of
which everyone is entitled. The wages system disappears, and with it
all production of goods as commodities. Naturally, so long as people
are paid wages they use their wages to buy what they can get for them
372
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
— so that all the things they need to buy are still produced as commodi-
ties. If needs are supplied and distributed as a social service, there is no
more buying and selling and no more commodity production.
That does not mean, however, that there is no more personal
property — that no one possess anything of his own but everything is
shared. Everyone will possess a great deal more personal property than
most people possess at present. But he acquires it as of right (the human
right to appropriate the things one needs for personal use and enjoy-
ment) and does not have to buy it. The effective enjoyment by every-
one of this right depends on their having co-operated and continuing
to co-operate in producing the means necessary for its enjoyment.
6
THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES
I. COMMUNISM AND ANTI-COMMUNISM
From our discussion it seems that progress towards the open society
must be progress towards communism.
The way of the open society is the way of democratic control of social
management. And whether we like it or not, this entails class struggle .
For the class interests of exploiting classes do not harmonise with
freedom and security for the rest of society. We cannot move into
the open society while respecting the rights of exploiting classes, but
only by infringing on them and finally doing away with them. What
is necessary is for popular democratic organisations to unite in practical
policies in opposition to the ruling classes. They must, in the apt
phrase of the British national anthem, “confound their politics,
frustrate their knavish tricks”. This is the fight for the open society.
But this is the very opposite of what Dr. Popper says about the
open society and its enemies. Believing that capitalism has funda-
mentally changed recently in such a way that exploitation, classes
and class struggles are disappearing, he says that capitalism is itself the
open society. So he says that the friends of the open society, who are
organising to get rid of capitalism, are its enemies ; and the enemies of
the open society, who are organising to preserve capitalism, are its
friends.
This topsy-turvy way of looking at contemporary issues is justified
by Dr. Popper in The Open Society and its Enemies by his making out
that the great fight for the open society against its enemies is a fight
against certain ideas and teachings. And these ideologies at enmity
with the open society are, he says, those which regard human insti-
tutions as other than man-made. They teach that institutions are not
made by men to suit their purposes but decreed by God or evolved
through the operations of inexorable necessity. With them go authori-
tarian or totalitarian views to the effect that both in public affairs and
in private life everything men do should be directed by authorities
placed over them, and no one should challenge authority by thinking
for himself.
As typical of such ideologies he selects the views of Plato, Hegel and
374
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
Marx. But whatever may be urged on behalf of Plato and Hegel by
Platonists and Hegelians (of whom not many survive), our discussion
of the views of Marx has shown that Dr. Popper is much mistaken in
selecting Marxism as such an ideology opposed to the open society.
That beliefs of the kind he describes are indeed incompatible with
progress is not in doubt. But as well as being mistaken in including
the scientific ideas of Marxism among them, he is mistaken in sup-
posing that these sorts of beliefs are the main barrier today to our
advancing int6 the open society. If they were there would not be much
to worry about, for they have long since been exploded in the minds
of most thinking people.
The real ideological enemy of the open society today is everything that is
included under the expression “ anti-communism ”. And the fight for the open
society is the fight against everything being done to enforce and preserve the
exploitation of man by man under the cover of anti-communism . It is not so
much a set theory as a passion and a prejudice entering into and
perverting every expression of theory. Views may be “progressive”,
adopting a critical attitude towards the establishment, urging de-
mocracy, equality and freedom, and seeking ways of improving
conditions for the majority of the human race — but at the same time
the element of anti-communism turns them into support of the
capitalist status quo and hostility to practical proposals to get rid of it.
In that they agree with the most “reactionary” views, which are
opposed to scientific ways of thinking and uphold traditional dogmas
and the sanctity of old-established oppressive institutions. Nowadays
there are few in authority who do not profess themselves convinced
of the values of democracy and of freedom; but they profess to
protect these values from the threat of communism, and for this
purpose use force, tell lies, put people under orders and stamp on
democratic organisation as vigorously as if they were convinced by
Plato’s Laws that democracy and freedom were evils to be suppressed.
In no doubt sincere anti-communist indignation Dr. Popper dedi-
cated his tirade The Poverty of Historicism “in memory of the countless
men and women of all creeds or nations or races who fell victims to the
fascist and communist belief in Inexorable Laws of Historical Destiny”.
He couples communism with fascism, and the victims of Hitler’s gas-
chambers with the victims of Stalin’s misrule while socialism was
building in the Soviet Union. Yet it was the Soviet people, advancing
to communism, who dealt the death-blow to Hitler and subsequently
by democratic methods put to rights the abuses of power which
THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES
375
happened under Stalin. We should remember all those who have since
fallen victims in Vietnam, in Greece, in Spain and Portugal, in many
parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America to the violence and cruelty of
imperialist aggression done in the name of anti-communism.
Dr. Popper denounces “tyranny”. And his principle of political
science, that “we need only distinguish between two forms of govern-
ment, democracies and tyrannies”, seems to have been formulated
less as a guide to sociologists and historians in their study of the forms
of state (for which purpose it is very inadequate) than as a guide for
practical politics, to lead us to distinguish between capitalist democ-
racies and communist tyrannies, and to exhort and entreat the
guardians of “the free world” to oppose and ward off the latter with
all their power. This principle is a rallying-cry of the defence of
imperialism. Dr. Popper can, indeed, justifiably rebut any suggestion
that his arguments are mere echoes of anti-communist propaganda,
since The Open Society and its Enemies announced the strategy of the cold
war even before Churchill’s Fulton Speech. But for working people
the issue of power is not the issue of democracy versus tyranny, but of
control of power by us versus control of power by them. To take the
road of the open society the latter control of power has to be overcome,
and with it the deceptive use of the ideology of anti-communism.
Seen in this light, Dr. Popper’s mistakes in The Open Society and its
Enemies are indeed serious ones. What he has done is to propagate
systematically and in detail the arguments of anti-communism.
For this he deserves thanks (and he has in fact received them) from the
enemies of the open society. But not from its friends.
2. AGAINST VIOLENCE, FOR JUST LAWS, FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
Communism is a tyranny, communism will smash up democratic
institutions, communism will destroy individual freedom, communism
will forbid you to think for yourself, it will place you under orders,
destroy all opportunities for criticism, impose a reinforced dogmatism,
turn back the advance of science, destroy culture, destroy civilisation,
return us to the beasts — all this is the theory of anti-communism.
It is the enemy of the open society, because on the one hand it prevents
the coming together in mutual respect and understanding, and in
common action, of those who want to advance out of the closed
society of exploitation, violence, wasted resources, want and in-
security; and on the other hand it provides the propaganda and the
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
37<5
justification for everything done, however tyrannical, however
violent, to preserve the rule of capital. In accordance with it, Dr.
Popper rests his main case that communism is the enemy of the open
society on the assertion that Communists stand for violence, for the
institution of a lawless tyranny and the destruction of the democratic
rights of individuals.
In making these three charges he makes as many mistakes. Let us
consider first the question of violence.
Dr. Popper confuses militancy with advocacy of violence. Marxism
advocates that mass organisations of working people should not be
prepared meekly to abide by instructions issued by authorities not
controlled by themselves and victimising working people for the
benefit of their exploiters. They should be intransigent in their opposi-
tion to any sort of control of power by the exploiting class. And they
should be united in their demands for what they immediately want
done, and prepared to back their leaders and those in whose hands
they entrust power in getting it done. This attitude of opposition to
the dictation of an exploiting minority should not be confused with an
attitude of violence directed against democratic institutions.
Marxism makes no proposals for the use of violence to destroy
legally established democratic institutions, where such exist. And
if anyone does try to use violence to destroy democratic institutions
(which has often been tried lately, and sometimes succeeded too), the
Communist Party joins with other democratic organisations in their
defence. For us, the question of violence can arise only as a question,
on the one hand, of how to resist violent attacks on democratic
institutions, on the activities of democratic organisations, and on the
implementation of the decisions of democratic authorities and, on the
other hand, of how to overcome violent methods of preventing
democratic institutions and democratic rights being won. As Marxists
have said again and again, if the ruling class resorts to violence, either
to deprive people of existing democratic rights or to prevent their
winning them, then violence must if necessary be used to defeat this
violence. But without a doubt, the better organised, the more dis-
ciplined and the more united the democratic mass movement is, the
less opportunity is there likely to be for the ruling class to resort to
violence, and the less violence will be required to repel violence if it
occurs.
This matter was touched on by Marx as long ago as December 8,
1880, in a letter (which Dr. Popper himself quotes) to Henry Hyndman.
THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES
377
In it Marx discussed the likelihood of “a revolution*’ in Britain, in a
context which makes it clear that by “a revolution” was meant a
violent uprising. “If the unavoidable evolution turn into a revolution”,
wrote Marx, “it would not only be the fault of the ruling classes, but
also of the working class. Every pacific concession of the former has
been wrung from them by ‘pressure from without’. Their action kept
pace with that pressure and if the latter has more and more weakened,
it is only because the English working class know not how to wield
their power and use their liberties, both of which they possess legally.”
So Marx told Hyndman that if the class struggle in Britain should ever
lead to the violence of civil war, that would be the workers’ fault,
because “they know not how to wield their power and use their
liberties”. If they learned how to do so, then the “unavoidable evolu-
tion” to socialism could be completed without revolutionary violence.
The current programme of the British Communist Party takes up and
spells out in contemporary political terms these ideas of Marx about
knowing how to wield the power of democratic organisation and
make good use of democratic rights.
Dr. Popper has taken upon himself to argue that Marxists always
adopt “a violent attitude” because we always declare ourselves pre-
pared to use violence to put down violence. He freely admits that Marx
himself refrained from predicting that the socialist revolution would
inevitably in all circumstances be a violent one. But, he goes on,
“the social revolution is an attempt by a largely united proletariat to
conquer complete political power, undertaken with the firm resolution
not to shrink from violence, should violence be necessary for achieving
this aim, and to resist any effort of its opponents to regain political
influence”. And “if a man is determined to use violence in order to
achieve his aims, then we may say that to all intents and purposes he
adopts a violent attitude, whether or not violence is actually used in a
particular case” (2-OS. 150).
So, according to Dr. Popper, Marxists always adopt “a violent
attitude” because we always declare ourselves prepared to use violence
to put down violence. According to him, we are men of violence
because we not only propose to win and use democratic rights to get a
socialist government elected, but also declare ourselves ready to use
violence if anyone tries violently to deprive us of the use of demo-
cratic rights or to resist the implementation of socialist measures.
Yet how could democratic rights be preserved, or any democratically
decided policy be implemented, unless we were prepared to repel
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
378
those who attempted by violence to prevent rights being used and
policies being put into effect? Dr. Popper himself agrees that physical
force is required for such purposes. We propose not to shrink from
violence if it is required to defend a socialist state and the democratic
organisations on which it is based, or to prevent a ruling class from
prohibiting and crushing democratic organisations. We propose to
disarm those who carry arms against the people, and if necessary to
carry arms ourselves in order to be able to do so.
In this we assume far less of “a violent attitude” than some of those
so-called democratic authorities whom Dr. Popper professes to admire
so much. If he wants to condemn “a violent attitude” today (1966-67)
he had better turn his attention first of all to that adopted by the
President of the United States of America. The fact is that while
Dr. Popper, along with other would-be friends of the open society,
expresses horror at the idea that Marxists should advocate violence
to defend democratic organisations from their opponents, or to get
them established, he first of all forgets that it is the opponents and not
those who are trying to win and use their democratic rights who
necessitate this by taking up a violent attitude, and at the same time
forgets to condemn the immense, iniquitous and systematic use of
violence, including violence of the most cruel kind imaginable, in
military campaigns to defend the rights of capital. Professed advocates
of the open society often express their horror at the violence and
cruelties sometimes practised by people who have been long deprived
of rights and are driven to seek desperate remedies. The violence and
cruelty of legally instituted authorities is excused even while it may
be regretted.
Dr. Popper’s real objection appears to be not against violence as
such, which he admits is sometimes necessary, but against illegal
violence. If he thinks violence should be under legal control, and so
controlled as to be used only to the minimum extent necessary to win
and protect democratic rights and carry through democratic policies,
then we entirely agree with him. We have no wish to let loose armed
bands in the streets and let them hang up on the lamp-posts anyone they
do not favour. And incidentally, the last time such bands got loose was
in Hungary, in 1956, when the “freedom fighters” ran amok. But we
want to put down not only the illegal violence of fascist bands and
groups of military conspirators directed against legal democratic
institutions, but also all legalised violence for the purpose of defending
profit and privilege.
THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES
379
Of all the threats to winning through to an open society the most
menacing now is the threat of war. It comes from the fact that control
over vast armed forces is vested in military organisations charged with
protecting capital and capitalist profits. They are deployed to stop
the liberation movements in colonial and former colonial territories
from ousting capitalist control over their governments and their
economies, and (as was revealed in Greece in 1967) they have plans
all ready to operate to overthrow democracy at need anywhere.
The chief thing in the fight for the open society is to get democratic
control over the military, to combat the hysteria and “totalitarian
irresponsibility of the individual” on which militarism thrives and,
where the militarists are already waging war, to force them to stop.
On the global scale this requires a combination of democratic resist-
ances, the exercise of their democratic rights by those who possess them
and, where necessary, the armed resistance of those against whom
military violence is directed.
Second, let us consider the question of lawless tyranny. Dr. Popper
confuses resistance to laws which perpetuate exploitation and unequal
rights with wishing to settle everything by arbitrary decree un-
controlled by law.
One of the achievements of the bourgeois revolution was the
establishment of “the rule of law”. There is instituted a single system
of law applying to everyone within the territory of the state, and an
elected assembly vested with the final authority to make and change
the laws. This means that the executive officers of the state, and all
those who command the means of coercion, have to act within the
law. They are charged to enforce the law and forbidden to break it.
Their functions are defined by law, and they are liable to punishment
if they try to use the force at their disposal for their own purposes
regardless of law. Thus at a decisive stage of ’the bourgeois revolution
in England, Parliament brought the Monarchy within the law by
force of arms. Earlier, the bourgeoisie had supported the Tudor
monarchs because they put a stop to the arbitrary violence of the
barons and disbanded their private armies.
The underlying economic reason why the bourgeoisie became
champions of the rule of law is clear enough. It is because this was an
indispensable condition for security in the commercial development
of the home market. Without it, they could never have become as
prosperous and powerful as they did become. And this necessitated
laws to protect the right to exploit and curtail the right to oppose it.
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
380
Marxists are opposed to exploitation, and oppose it even when the
law steps in to protect it. But that, says Dr. Popper, means we want
to break the rule of law and carry on without it, whereas without law
there can only be anarchy or tyranny.
The law which Marxism opposes is law in so far as it has been
instituted to protect the rights of exploiting classes. We are not in
favour of submitting to laws which are designed to protect the
security and rights of exploiters and hamper the organisation of the
masses. We propose to nullify such laws. But that is not to oppose
the reign of law in general. We do not propose that any individuals
or any organisations should assume powers to set themselves above the
law, but that through democratic institutions the law should be recast
to correspond to the work of democratic organisations to recast social
relations. Indeed, it is evident that the rule of law is a condition for
effective democratic management. Democracy supposes instituted
procedures for arriving at decisions and controlling what is done.
And that supposes enforcement of law and regulation of the whole
business of management by law. Without law there can be no security,
no rights and no democracy. Consequently where lawless dictatorships
exist, trampling on democratic rights for the benefit of a gang of
exploiters, we propose establishing, or re-establishing, in their place
the rule of law to protect human rights.
This may lead us to query a forcible statement written by Lenin
in 1917, at the beginning of his pamphlet The Proletarian Revolution and
the Renegade Kautsky: “The revolutionary dictatorship of the pro-
letariat is power . . . unrestricted by any laws.” Lenin’s subsequent
arguments made clear what he had in mind. Kautsky (anticipating
Dr. Popper) had condemned the Soviet regime as a lawless tyranny
because Russian workers were disregarding the old laws before they
sat down to draw up new ones. “He expects us to have a constitution
all complete to the very last word in a few months”, Lenin wrote.
“. . . When reactionary lawyers have for centuries been drawing up
rules and regulations to oppress the workers, to bind the poor man
hand and foot . . . oh, then bourgeois liberals and Mr. Kautsky see no
tyranny. This is law and order: the ways in which the poor are to be
kept down have all been thought out and written down . . . But now
that the toiling and exploited classes have begun to build up a new
proletarian state ... all the scoundrelly bourgeoisie, the whole gang of
bloodsuckers with Kautsky echoing them, howl about tyranny.”
Strong words, no doubt. They express the fact that the task of a
THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES
381
socialist revolution is to establish effective control of power by popular
organisations and use it to suppress capitalism. In this they will not be
bound by old laws which circumscribed popular rights, and if neces-
sary will assert those rights in action before defining them in law.
But that does not imply that they have not the task of constructing a
legal system. On the contrary, the task remains of instituting a system
of procedures of management and of law which will protect the rights
and personal property of individuals, control and set limits to all
powers, and embody in institutional procedures the practice of free discussion
and criticism , of settlement of disputes , of tolerance, of free research and
expression , and of working together to produce for all the means and oppor-
tunities of a free life .
This brings us to the final question about the democratic rights of
individuals. Dr. Popper confuses resolute action in enforcing decisions
with stifling democracy in popular organisations.
No one with any sense of political realities can deny that in con-
ditions of struggle measures have to be decided and put into operation
quickly and effectively. For this reason measures cannot always wait
while committees deliberate and all and sundry voice their objections,
but a relatively small number of responsible individuals have to be
given powers of command. The word “dictator” originally denoted
an officer given temporary command to deal with a situation of
national emergency in the democratic Roman Republic. And it was
obviously because he foresaw the need for emergency powers in order
to effect the transition from capitalism to socialism that Marx (a man
well-read in the classics) used the phrase “dictatorship of the pro-
letariat” to describe a workers’ government. Some Marxists nowadays
try to explain that by “dictatorship” he did not mean what he said;
but evidently he did.
Dr. Popper warns us that once individuals are given any dictatorial
powers they are apt to hang on to them, increase them, and misuse
them, in defiance of democracy. And indeed the experience of many
revolutions bears out this warning. It has happened not once but
several times that revolutions have thrown up dictators, these dictators
have sought to preserve and increase their power by turning it against
the popular organisations which gave it to them, others have then
risen up to overthrow the dictator, and so on. This process is now
regarded by many as an inviolable law of revolution: “the revolution
devours its children”. What are we to do about it? Are we for this
reason to abjure any democratic efforts to force through a fundamental
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
382
change of the social system? The arguments of Dr. Popper are hardly
of recent birth, and had Englishmen listened to them three hundred
years ago we would have continued to enjoy the benefits of the
divine right of kings— just as had Russians listened to them fifty
years ago they would now be labouring for the greater profit of
monopoly capital.
The problem is a problem of the democratic control of power . For this
democratic control of power in the socialist revolution there must
exist popular mass democratic organisations — well organised, imbued
with a voluntary discipline, well managed, clear about their demands
and their aims. Such organisations, embracing in their membership
the majority of the working people, can break the capitalist control of
power and set up their own power, make it as firm and strong as
circumstances require, and control it democratically.
The essential condition is that organisations shall be organised on well-
established principles of democracy — that is to say, of the orderly conduct
of discussion of business, of criticism of persons and policies, of carrying
out decisions, of the election of leaders and officials, and of the re-
sponsibility of these to the organisations for carrying out the policies
for which they were elected. Clearly, such democracy of organisation
must not be merely inscribed in a rule-book but have become a habit,
embedded in the consciousness of the masses, solidified as a result of
practical experience, a law of life of all organisations.
This sort of democracy, which governs not merely the methods of
appointment and dismissal of officials, but the activity of millions of
citizens, is no “mere form”. Without it, it is not possible for rulers,
even though democratically appointed, to be subject to effective and
continuous democratic control. And incidentally, this explains in what
sense Marxists do “disparage” the “mere formal” democracy of general
elections and representative government. Dr. Popper says these
provide “the only known device by which we can try to protect
ourselves against the misuse of political power”. Experience shows that
that is not true, since despite general elections and representative
government political power is still misused, thanks to its control by
capitalist organisations. The point is that there must be democratic
organisation embracing the day-to-day activity of millions; and that
and only that can provide effective protection against the misuse of
political power, and at the same time invest in individual office-holders
all the power necessary to carry through against opposition measures
on behalf of the people.
THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES
383
Control has to be exercised through a series of links — and the only
way this can be done is by the organisation of individuals in demo-
cratic organisations in which the members continually exercise their
rights of discussion, criticism, hearing reports from officials and voting
on policies. If the executive is controlled from below by such organ-
isations, then the organised individuals do, each of them, exercise a
real and not merely an occasional and nominal control over the
executive. Rulers are held continually responsible to the organisations
that entrusted them with power. Each individual then exercises a real
individual control through the rights he possesses as a member of an
organisation.
To sum up. Marxism proposes organised mass opposition to ruling-
class violence; it proposes opposition to laws which exist to protect
the privileges of the ruling class and the institution of a system of law
to protect the rights of the common people ; and it proposes the firm
control of political power by mass organisations so as to eradicate
capitalism and advance on the road to communism. These are the
practical proposals of the fight for an open society. On the other hand,
policies of using violence — military violence and police violence,
legalised violence and illegal violence — to enforce the interests of
exploiting classes; policies to make laws and enforce them to protect
the exploiting classes; and policies to keep political power out of the
control of the organised masses — these are the policies of the open
society's enemies.
3. THE RATIONALIST BELIEF IN REASON
But effective action towards the open society is only possible, so Dr.
Popper repeatedly informs us, on the basis of reason or reasonableness.
In other words, it has to be decided on as the outcome of argument and
criticism, of looking for and sifting evidence, of reckoning up con-
sequences and testing opinions by experience.
Reasonableness, he continues, brings people together. For it enables
them to test their premises, draw valid conclusions and concert their
efforts. Where they disagree it enables them to argue it out, and to
reach agreement by assisting each other in discovering mistakes. But
this is exactly what Marxists, with their doctrines of class war, refuse
to do. They refuse to try to reach agreement with “the class enemy".
Hence they decline reasonable discussion about differences, resent
criticism, ignore evidence which conflicts with what they have
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
384
decided must be true, are reckless of consequences, and believe blindly.
And this is sheer irrationalism.
Dr. Popper, like many others, finds himself in a contradiction when
he reasons about reason and the need for reasonableness. On the one
hand he is all for reasonableness and says how unreasonable Marxists
are in proposing to do away with capitalism. But on the other hand,
he declines to reason about what changes in conditions must be
brought about before counsels of reasonableness can prevail. He is
caught in the same dilemma as advocates of reasonableness have
always been. On the one hand, affairs will never go well until reason-
ableness prevails over the clamour of competing interests. On the
other hand reasonableness cannot prevail unless people are reasonable,
which competing interests prevent. The difficulty was brought out
long ago by David Hume (that very reasonable philosopher) in his
studies "of human nature”. Men, he said, are moved by interest and
passion, not by reason. And so at the same time as he recommended
what he concluded to be a reasonable attitude in life, he concluded
from this same reasoning that the majority of men would never adopt
it. In the same way Dr. Popper exhorts us to be reasonable. But from
the way things go there is no prospect in sight of building a rational
society.
However, the feebleness of the encouragement offered by Dr.
Popper’s rationalism is compensated by the vigour of his denunciation
of the irrationalism of Marxists. Rationalism, he tells us, "is an attitude
of readiness to listen to critical arguments and to learn from experience”
(2-OS. 225). But Marxism discourages the whole attitude of listening
and learning. According to "Marx’s historical philosophy” the course
of social development can be decided only by "the chosen class, the
instrument of the creation of a classless society, and at the same time,
the class destined to inherit the earth”. This, says Dr. Popper, is on a
par with "the historical philosophy of racialism or fascism” according
to which "the chosen race” is "the instrument of destiny” (i-OS. 9-10).
Marx, he concedes, was in spirit and intention "a rationalist . . . But
his doctrine that our opinions are determined by class interests hastened
the decline of this belief. . . . Marx’s doctrine tended to undermine the
rationalist belief in reason. Thus threatened both from the right and
from the left, a rationalist attitude to social and economic questions
could hardly resist when historicist prophecy and oracular irrationalism
made a frontal attack on it” (2-OS. 224).
So, it seems, Marxists join with racialists and fascists "to undermine
THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES 385
the rationalist belief in reason”. And they do this by their “doctrine
that our opinions are determined by class interests”.
If this “doctrine” is supposed to imply (as Dr. Popper seems to
think) that class interests and class interests alone determine all the
opinions of every individual, then obviously the doctrine is false, and
as obviously it would “tend to undermine the rationalist belief in
reason”. But Marx never propounded any such doctrine. Indeed,
he never propounded any “doctrine” whatever about this matter.
He investigated in concrete cases the influence of class interests in
processes of opinion-formation, and on the basis of these investigations
he concluded that in class-divided societies class interest is a constant
determining factor in opinion-formation. His whole approach to the
question was scientific.
The way in which class interest determines opinion is to be traced,
not in the first place in individual processes of opinion-formation, but
rather in the aggregate of opinion-forming and opinion-expressing
interactions of individuals in a society divided into classes. There is
(as Marx discovered, but he is not alone in remarking on it) a very
close connection, always observable in the aggregate though often
not in the case of single individuals, between economic or class interest
and mental interest. The ambiguity in the word “interest” is significant
here. Class interests have the effect of making people interested in
certain themes, certain problems, about which it becomes important,
from the point of view of class interest, that opinions should be
formed. Simultaneously they have the effect of creating what may be
termed blind-spots in opinion-formation: certain ranges of experience
are ignored, certain questions are simply not asked, and this kind of
opinion-censorship is sustained by the indignation (or in certain
instances it may be the indifference) with which any opinions tending
to trespass on blind-spots are received. Again, class interests lead to
unquestioned assumptions being made both in factual judgments and
in value judgments. In general, whatever class is dominant , or specially
active in furtherance of its interests , its interests will receive reflection in
major directions of interest and of opinion-formation in society at the time.
These and many other effects of class interest on aggregate opinion-
formation cannot but have a very pronounced influence on the
opinions formed by all individuals in society. The starting point for
all individual interest (that is to say, mental interest) and opinion is the
aggregate of interest and opinion which the individual finds current
in society, towards which he has to orient himself. So his interests will
386
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
take their direction from class interests (but not necessarily exclusively
those of the class into which he himself is born), and his opinions will
tend to be for or against class-determined opinions, and so inescapably
bear a class as well as an individual character. When individuals of
exceptional mental ability and originality elaborate opinions, they
tend to serve the interests of one or another class. When they question
received opinions, their very questioning tends to aid one class interest
or another. Or if the individual’s opinions break right away from any
class interest (in both senses of “interest”), then he becomes an isolated
eccentric in his society, and he and his opinions suffer accordingly.
And this is to say nothing of the upbringing and education which
individuals receive, which cannot but play a determining part in their
opinions, and in which all manner of class-determined interests, blind
spots and assumptions are put into their heads.
Such being roughly the facts, it follows that Dr. Popper assumes
without reason that no opinions determined by class interest can at
the same time be reasonable. For there is no reason why class interest
should always and necessarily preclude “an attitude of readiness to
listen to critical arguments and to learn from experience”. On the
contrary, on many topics class interest may demand the formation of
reasonable opinions — namely, on those topics in which the class
interest is better served by truth than by illusions.
So far from Marx’s scientific conclusions about the way class
interests determine opinions undermining “the rationalist belief
in reason”, they provide the clue to understanding at long last the
practical means by which an attitude of reasonableness can be made to prevail
To promote “a rationalist attitude to social and economic questions”
does not demand pitting “reason”, as some kind of ideal force free
from such mundane influences as class interest, against the irrationality
of class interest. It does not demand that a few rationalists who have
managed to overcome in their thinking every influence of circum-
stances should somehow manage to get the ear of the swinish multitude
and teach them too to think disinterestedly. These are the contradic-
tions of “rationalism” which have caused so many in the past and
present to conclude that reasonableness is an ideal incapable of realisa-
tion. No, to work for reasonableness to prevail is to work for the victory of
that class interest which is served by reasonableness .
Recently the French Marxist, Louis Althusser, has presented us with
a definition of “ideology” which distinguishes it sharply (as class-
determined opinion) from science. “There is no question here of
THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES 387
giving a profound definition of ideology,” he writes. “It suffices to
say very schematically that an ideology is a system (possessing its own
logical consistency) of representations (images, myths, ideas or con-
cepts as the case may be) endowed with an existence and an historical
role within a given society . . . ideology as a system of representations
is distinguished from science in that with it the practical-social function
outweighs the theoretical function (or the function of yielding know-
ledge)’ ’ ( Pour Marx , Paris 1966, 238)
Here is a case of a Marxist engaging in that very habit of setting up
abstract antitheses against which the Marxist dialectic is directed (so
Althusser is right to call it “very schematic”). Of course, if one con-
trasts, say, the “system of representations” of the constitution of the
material world which was current in medieval society with the con-
ceptions of nature current today, one can contrast the former as
“feudal ideology” with the latter as science. However, the reason why
scientific conceptions of nature ousted feudal ideology was that the
development of capitalism demanded and encouraged a scientific
approach to the knowledge of nature. Industry could not use images
or myths, and it could not develop without scientific ideas or concepts.
So far as nature is concerned, the “representations endowed with an
existence and an historical role” within bourgeois society are scientific.
This has been forwarded by the interest (in both senses of the word) of
the capitalist class. It is not due to the “practical-social function”
having ceased to outweigh the “theoretical function”, or to demands
for winning knowledge having contrived to outweigh the demands
of practice. It is due to circumstances in which the practical-social
function could only be served by genuine scientific inquiry. So in this
department bourgeois ideology is scientific — and reasonable. It is a
great mistake to set up science in abstract antithesis to ideology . Under
definite circumstances ideology can only be developed to satisfy its practical
social function by the adoption of the methods of science. And if that were
not so, it would be a kind of miracle that the methods of science, and
the attitude of reasonableness in the formation of opinions, should ever
begin, let alone come out on top.
So far as class interests are concerned in the circumstances of the
present day, it is quite clear that the class interests of the capitalist class,
and the sorts of ideologies which its social dominance promotes, do
not preclude “an attitude of readiness to listen to critical arguments
and to learn from experience” in many matters. In these matters they
favour reasonableness and scientific thinking, as a result of which these
TOWARDS AN OPEN SOCIETY
3S8
good things have made some progress in capitalist societies. This
applies particularly in the development of science and technology;
and it also applies, though with rather definite limitations, in what
Dr. Popper calls ‘‘social engineering” and, in more theoretical matters,
in the discussion of a number of problems of philosophy, morals,
aesthetics, and so forth. But when it comes, theoretically to basic
questions about human relations and the development of society, and
practically, to the management of social production, the conduct of
class struggle, the control of state power and the framing of political
policies — there the attitude of reasonableness, the readiness to follow
through and act on the conclusions of scientific inquiry, the readiness
to listen to critical arguments and to learn from experience ceases.
What takes over is irrational prejudice, preconceived opinion, refusal
of critical questioning, sophistry, blindness, recklessness of conse-
quences, refusal to face facts and unreasoning indignation against
anyone who draws attention to them.
In all these vital matters it is the working-class interest, and that
alone, which demands reasonableness and the aid of science. Not to
preserve the exploitation of man by man, but to fight to end it, and to
arrive at policies to guide the movement to do this effectively, demands
nothing in ideology except what can be concluded from a scientific view of
the human situation tempered and developed by critical argument and the
tests of experience.
Hence if today the voice of reason has a better prospect of ampli-
fication and of making itself heard than “the voice of one crying in
the wilderness” as of old, this is because it is not, as rationalists have
imagined, the accuser against even* interest but, on the contrary, the
true voice of the interest of the working men. Whether recognised by
them or not, the working classes are interested in the cultivation ot
reasonableness in all ideas, in all dealings, in all practical policies.
Anything else injures them. And so reasonableness has the prospect of
growth out of the soil of class interest. And intellectuals who are
concerned to arrive at a rational outlook find a common language with
workers, but can find it with no other class.
Rationalists have posed the question: how can reasonableness be
made to prevail in human affairs? To answer it they must themselves
cultivate a rational and scientific approach to social questions. And tor
that they must stop trying to refute Marxism, and join with Marxism
in opposition to the ideas of the exploiting classes. Then the answer
appears. It is in the struggle of working people against exploitation that
THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES 389
reasonableness can find support , and out of it reasonableness can in the end
prevail This is where it grows, so help it grow there. And oppose
everything that throttles it, whether from outside the movement or
from inside.
It follows that reasonableness is not (as Dr. Popper and many others
appear to suggest) the same thing as universal tolerance, nor as non-
violence, nor as the reconciliation of all interests. It is not the counsel of
reason that where incompatible interests exist a way should always be
sought to reconcile them all On the contrary, where they conflict one
must always in practice be subordinate to another (as those who in
capitalist countries counsel reconciliation counsel the subordination of
the working-class to the capitalist interest), and what is reasonable is to
subordinate the interest which opposes human progress to that which
promotes it. It is not the counsel of reason to tolerate the blocking of
progress by organised vested interests, nor to refuse to use physical
force to overcome physical force.
Our century has been called “the century of the common man”.
This is because of the growth of democratic institutions and demo-
cratic organisation. The “common man” has no interest in exploiting
his fellows, and still less in fighting with them over economic issues,
territorial claims or ideological differences. If contrary to all reason
exploitation and enmity continue, this is not because of the inherent
unreasonableness of the common man but because of the interested
irrationality of administrators, legislators, leaders and rulers. Our
trouble is not in the irrationality of the common man but in the
institutions which set men at loggerheads and place over us the rulers
we have still got. The reasonable ideology w*e must have in order to
end these conditions is one which subjects them to rational criticism so
as to show how institutions must be changed by us, and rulers and
policies brought under control. Its principles are those of science and
reason, its development comes through critical questioning and learn-
ing from experience, it unites people in rational opposition to the
clamours and incitements of divisive ideologies, it relies on the totality
of scientific ways of thinking and promulgates not “doctrines” but a
well-tested method of practical thinking.
INDEX
Abstraction: 30, 49-51, 70, 72, 74-5,
77-81, 86, 98, 101-2, 103, 104, 105,
116-17, 120, 124, 157, 164, 166, 167,
179, 189, 195, 202, 237, 253
Acton, Lord: 179
Althusser, Louis: 386-7
Anti-Communism: 30, 18 1, 185, 344,
374-5
Aristotle: 24, 35, 48, 62, in, 117, 121,
284
Attlee, Lord: 216
Automation: 213, 231, 319, 349-52,
354
Bagrit, Sir Leo: 350
Balzac, Honore de: 254-5
Berkeley, George: 50, 70
Bernstein, Edward: 94
Blake, William: 346
Capitalism: 21, 22, 27, 76, no, 141,
144, 145, 148, 149, 155, 158, 159,
162, 168, 169, 178, 184, 186, 188-214,
215, 218-19, 225, 227-31, 232, 248,
250, 255-7, 258, 273-4, 283, 285,
287-9, 298, 303, 310-n, 322, 331-3,
339-41, 343, 345, 347-8, 353, 358,
363-5, 3 <56, 368, 369, 381, 384, 387
accumulation: 200, 205-14, 229,
341; crises: 207, 211-12, 227,
229, 231, 303, 310, 363, 364;
monopoly: 188-92, 204, 208,
220, 256, 270, 347, 364-5
Categories: 80, 105, 116-21
Caudwell, Christopher: 40
Causality: 66-7, 116, 148, 313-14
Charles II (English King): 250
Choice: 133, 3°7, 309, 3C3. 3H. 315.
317. 319 . 321. 324. 337. 342
Churchill, Sir Winston: 216, 375
Civilisation: 179, 208, 213, 215, 216,
217, 218, 245, 249, 306, 308, 317,
320, 334
Classes: 26, 129, 154, 172, 176, 210,
218, 219, 241-4, 247, 249, 250, 254,
Classes — contd .
260, 272, 276, 281, 285-91, 304, 331,
340, 37i, 380, 384
agreements of (compromise): 94, 215,
227-9, 2 42* 250; ideas , policies:
174, 176, 242-5, 384-9; ruling:
177, 217, 218, 226, 227, 229,
244, 252, 258, 263, 268, 273-4,
288, 298, 309, 310, 311, 367,
369, 376-7, 378, 383 ; struggle: 93,
94, 106, 148, 154, 155, 156, 157,
177, 178, 179, 182, 183, 186,
206, 208, 210, 228, 233, 242-5,
246, 248, 258-9, 261, 264,
266-71, 289, 301, 322, 323,
331-2, 335, 345, 353, 370, 373,
388; working: 150, 155, 156,
159, 220, 243, 268, 302, 323,
334, 338, 345, 377, 388-9
Closed Society: 132, 325-6, 328-30,
332-6, 340, 342, 343
Commodity: 74, 79, 189, 192-8, 283,
287, 332, 335, 354, 363, 372
Communism (Communist Society) :
93, 94, 95, 129, 141, 1 50-1, 190, 192,
335, 343, 344, 345, 352-9, 368-72,
373, 383
primitive (see also Tribalism): 129,
168, 332,333,334,335,340, 362
Communist Party (Communists, Com-
munist Movement) : 58, 95, 125, 132,
138, 142, 150, 179-87, 221, 225-7,
230, 249, 269, 311, 357, 360, 368,
370, 375-7
Darwin, Charles: 27-9, 30, 168
Democracy: 173, 174, 178, 179, 180,
181, 186, 218, 249-52, 255, 258-77,
281-3, 292, 300, 301, 302, 305, 309,
3I0-II, 326, 335, 339, 344, 345, 358,
365, 366-7, 368, 373, 374, 377, 379,
380-3
d. institutions: 232, 233, 235, 246,
261-71, 295-9, 375, 376, 378,
380-2, 389
Democritus: 69
Ml Ml
TEE OPEN PHILOSOPHY AND THE OPEN SOCIETY
39 -
Dialectks:
-•5 spfMOi (mahmi): 33 , 60 - 1 , 67,
76 — Si, 97 - 5 : crr-oretf analysis:
32 , “ 3 — Si, 9 >, 239 ;
34* 62 - 1 , 6 ;-x, 70 - 3 , 75 — Si,
92 ~i* 93 , 95, ico, 120 , 123 , 124 ,
129 , 202 , 223 , 265, 2 ” 2 , 3 S 7 :
a^TMkdz^s: 32 , 75 , 75 , 99 ,
100 - 3 . 107 , 109 . I 3 i- 175 ; of
kmv'bdgf: Si— S ; Lars (rnn-
35 . 73 * 55 , S9-91, 9S,
124* in* 1 1 5 * iai, 12:. 129,
2C2, 223, 266. 272-, 337;
kfL :: 35 , 76 - 7 . 122 ; muserialisi:
41 , 6 l, 76 , 93 ; negmirr.: 76 , 77,
99 * 1 : 2 - 11 , 332 , 335 - 6 ; ciianorf
z?tdfuz.:ir/: 75,9-5-9* 106 - 7 , Hi,
120 , 123 ; ariafe ("fen, tx::-
rteii, rfTZtesis”): 32 , 36 , 64 , 67 ,
" 5 * 1 - 9 . 336 : ssnirj efposi&s:
6^ 6-5-9- 73 * 75 * 75, S 3 , 95-9-
I co -9
Dickers, Chaies: 1 S 9
Dictatorship of Proletariat: : < 2 , 155 ,
156 , 157 , 175— S:, 155 , :Sx, 223 . 22 S,
253 , 255 - 9 , 2 - 1 , 2 - 4 --. 32 - 3 S 2 , 3 S 1
Duhrir.g. Ecger.: 226
Qecdoas: 251, 259, 263, 264, 272, 2-5,
2 - 6 , 2 ?:, 2 S 2 . 25x, 255 . 259 , 291 ,
_ c>5--, 335, 339, 3 52
tarth , Frederick: 25, 2", 33, 34, 36,
-ii, -iT, 53- 5A 65, 9 :, 52 , 92 , :ox,
:c-5, ::x- 135, 136, 172, 171, 173,
: 5 i, ::c. 241. 2x5, 25*. 262, 363
sidosus 6 c--, - 3 , - 9 , 9 :— ico,
121 , icc : or iiTtiirvrerz r
zzr ilzbsn 191 - 2 : on jrf* £: *n :
I __ 293 , 306 - 9 , 312 , 313 ,
312 - 19 , 3 — : mzxrk&m: ;-S,
21 , 51 , 69 - 72 , 125 , 123 ; on iSse
iC-stf; 24 -. 255 - 2 , 556
pi r^rcii : 69
-quality: 22-3, 262, 265, 265, 251-9:.
292-x. 295, 525, 522, 52X, 3 -2
rascrcialisn : ;c, 15:, 159-61, if.. CiS,
-53, 297, 29?, 5 C2
Exploitation: 156, 157, 172, 176, 177,
175. 179, l5o, 1S6, I *9, 191, 19S,
202-4, 207, 209 210, 216, 217, 215,
219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225,
229, 241, 242. 244- 145* C4S-9, 250,
262, 265, 266, 267, 269, 270, 273,
2?5, 2 *5* C90, 292, 295. 297, 301,
504, 507, 509, 310, 311, 3*2, 353,
33-4, 335- 336, 340, 542, 353, 363,
37C, 371, 373* 374- 375, 379* 35o,
5S3, 355, ;59
Fabians: 296
Fasc^n: 1S4, 1S5* 374, 37?, 5$4
Fate (Destiny, Fatalism): 131, 133, 145,
153* 155-9, 170, 175-9. I So, 1S1,
1S6. 224. 230, 373, 374, 3S4
Feudalism (Serfdom, Sects): 16S, 169,
204, 107, 254. 276, 2S3, 1*4, 322,
35S, 3x6, 563, 35-
Freedom: 205, 215. 245, 262, 26-, 265,
251, 292-52X, 526, 525, 344, 345.
353. 573, 374
ef ckzix, fr:~: amspearz: 305 - 24 .
5 : 5 - 19 , 521 , 322 ; irJiinJuil:
292 , 292 , 299 - 300 , 3 - 4 * 537 -II,
3I2-I-, 320-24, 335* 337, 342,
3 - 9 * 355 * 361 . 362 , 351 ; Uriiu
of 292 - 5 . 299 - 504 , 507 - 5 , 311 .
3 : 2 - 14 , 517 ; mztsssrf amdcdms
of: 3 : 2 - 24 ; pdfcual: 294 - 504 ,
3 C 5
Freud, Smmimd: 19
Galbraith, Professor R : 565—6
Galilee Galilei: 24
Gherghiz Khar. : 262
Grcerr. Sir W. S.: 502
Happiness: :Si, 222 . 225 - 6 , 505
Heath. Edvrard (Ted): 2 "3
Heseh G. V/. F. : 17 , 51 * 6 i f 65 - 9 , 73 .
75, 5c, SS, 104 , 135 , IC 9 , no, 117 ,
ri!, in, 122 , 125 , 124 , 125 , 153 ,
512 , 315 , 515 , 5 1 6 , 556 , 573 . 374
Herachms: iox
INDEX
Hiitoricism: 50, 1 2 9—3 o . i>, 155.
156-9, 16’. 169. 1S1, 1S2. 225, 205.
29$, 521. 325. 32'. 329, 3S4
History: 153-6. 15'. 1 >2. 515
h . fT ' S . nsr .: 12-30, 1 3 '->4. 15'.
167
Hider, Adolf: 1S5, 5-4
Hobbes, Thomas: So, 302
Holism: 15 1-2, 159. 160-1. 162. 564.
367
Hume, David: So, 5S4
Idealism: 24. 31, 41, 42, 46. 4', 50.
56-7, 6-5, 9-S, ITS, 119. 121, 12.2. 125.
153, 529
Ideology: 243. 553. 367. 575. 574, 575.
5S6-9
Imperialism: 1S4, 1S6, 212, 215, 217,
220, 575
Individual, the human (see also
Freedom, individual): 156, 161,105.
170, 226, 251, 2S1, 525-7. 555,
336-42, 5S5. 3S5-6
Induction: 25, 41. 165
Inevitability: 154, 155. 15', i$i, 221.
230
Institutions (see also Democracy, d,
insdtudons): 135, 172. 215. 221, 222,
225, 22S, 252— 44, 345 K53. 25S. 273.
276, 2S1, 2S2, 2S5-5, 395, 501, 302,
305, 304, 506. 519, 520, 52S-55. 35-,
339. 34S» 34i. 34^ » 353* 357* 3^7*
373. 3*i. 3^9
cr:J class: 233, 255, 242-5, 2SS-91 :
^viYTr:*T?erj;: 259, 245-5”, 25S—
395-9: rwfes * f : 2 5 6-5
Intellectuals: i"4, 220, 3 SS
Lntendons: 134, 145, 145-S, 170. i”i
Interests: i”2, 173, 1-4, 179, 1S0, 1S2,
1S3. 22”, 22S-9. 242, 245. 244. 24-.
249, 251, 255, 269, 2 ”2, 277. 2$$.
291, 295. 539-36, 559. 543. 545* 344.
361. 373* 3*4-9
Johnson, Lyndon B.: 3”$
Kant, Immanuel: 1 1 ”, irS, 121, 2 S 1
Kautsky, Karl: 3 So
95
Knowledge: 26. 45, 4”, 5 1 — 5 . 150, 171,
295. 5lb. 317. 531. 349.361. 5 5”
Labour: 55. 19S, 511-4, 545-0, 551
izi ' isimr . cf 24 1, 24”. 507— 5 , 516,
522, 525. 531, 554-6
La bout ,\ i o vem en : (W orkmg-class
Movement): i”, 125. 145, 174, 176,
1S5, 1 >5—6, iSS. 200. 20S. 2 co, 221,
251, 255, 255, 26S. 2 56 , 554, 5^2.
544. 545* 559
Laplace. P. S.: 70
Law (Legislation) : 1 5c, 1S.4, 240, 20S,
271, 276. 2S2, 2S5. 2S4. 2S5. 25”.
2>S-oo, 292. 501. 502, 505, 556-7,
579— 5 1. 555
Laws :
rcowoV: 195-4, 301-2, 212. of
mstyrr: 90, 1 65. 205-6, 25”,
515-15. 510. 525: of sxiJ
129, 15”— 5. 159,
US, lO”-"!. IpO. 205-7, 224,
25C-1. 255. 254, 521, 541: of
c&wfftf: 55, 122-5
Lenin, V. I.: 52. 55, 40, 75, Si, S5. 95,
ico, 1 19. 122, 124, 149, 151, 152,
155. 1S0-9C. 202, 2:4, 226. 241, 550
Liberalism : 5 00, 5 05 . 5 00. 5 co-: 0,516,
540
Lincoln. Abraham: 260
Logic: 52, 55, 52. 76-7, 5”, 09. 102,
105. ico, no, in, 122. 141. 157, 165
bri.'isl ryre: 1 12-14, 115-16, 11S;
rio^\YU7oi: .t: or;, Ira’ of; 32-6, 64
Louis XV (French King): 140
Machines: 210, 211, 25”, 519. 54CY-7,
Mai thus, Rev. T. R. : 25
Man (Human Nature. Humanity) : 2 5.
46, 55. 154. 145* 302-5. 515* 515*
525, 541, 55-
Management: 1 ”2. 153. 191, 199.
200—1 . 2II-I2, 24I, 245. 255, 200,
277, 295. 296, 535-4* 531* 553- 547.
545, 552, 556, 555, 36I, 362. 564.
5<X>-7, 571, 550. 551, 355
Mao Tse-mng: 101
THE OPEN PHILOSOPHY AND THE OPEN SOCIETY
394
Marx, Karl :
social theory of: 17, 19-31, 34, 36,
81, 83, 88-9, 90, 91, 129-42, 151,
152-9, 161-3, 163-71, 181, 182,
223- 4, 230, 232-3, 235, 240,
241, 249, 283, 327, 329, 331.
340,373,385,386
on capitalism: 33, 178, 189-214,
307-8, 363 ; on capitalist accumul-
ation: 204-14; on class struggles:
232, 243-4, 258-9, 323; on
dialectics: 33, 36, 76, 78, 80,
98-9, 335-6; on freedom: 292,
306, 308-9, 313, 314-15, 3i9,
324, 328; labour theory of value:
192-8, 202-4, 207; materialism
of: 51-4, 69, 118, 119, 125;
methodology of: 30-1, 239, 266;
politics of: 149, 172-7, 179,
229-30, 342, 376-7, 38i; pre-
dictions by: 22, 146-50, 188, 192,
204-5, 208, 209, 210, 347, 349;
on science and technology: 345-8;
on socialism and communism: no,
343, 344, 355-6, on the state: 247,
253, 254-5, 257, 260, 262-3,
271-4, 302
Marxism :
class character of: 175-7; “ dog-
matism ” of: 17, 129, 137, 205,
384; “orthodox”: 91-3, 126;
philosophy of: 40, 43-7, 60, 97-8 ;
political programme of: 17, 93, 94,
157, 179, 182-8, 214, 217-22,
224- 7, 267-71, 274-7, 293-4,
302-4, 305, 306, 3 1 1, 327, 340,
344, 359, 380-3; “revisionism”:
94, 183; scientific development of:
18, 36-7, 92, 95, 96, 1 12; and
social sciences: 79-81, 94, 150,
165, 321; theory of the state:
80-1, 253-7, 271-4, 298, 331
Materialism: 31, 42-59, 88, 89, 115,
118, 153
dialectical: 37-41, 69, 97, m-12,
1 15, 1 19, 122, 129, 138 ; historical:
2 6, 31, 129, 135, 137-40;
metaphysical: 69-71
Metaphysics: 19, 38, 41, 60-7, 70, 72,
74, 75, 76, 98, 101, 106, 119, 120,
122, 125, 243
Mill, John Stuart: 300, 301
Napoleon I (French Emperor) : 145
Nationalism: 183, 326, 338
Necessity: 66- 7, 87-8, 99, 100, 102,
105, 109, hi, 120, 121, 154-7, 170,
177, 186, 191, 224, 225, 242, 244,
302, 306, 308-9, 312-17, 324, 327,
357, 362, 369, 373
Newton, Sir Isaac: 24, 69, 158
Open Society: 267, 320, 325-8, 332-6,
337-40, 342, 343, 344, 356, 359, 373,
374, 375, 376, 379, 383
Opportunity: 284, 307, 308, 319-24,
342, 381
Organisation: 149-50, 152, 153, 171,
174, 179, 180, 183, 184, 186, 220,
226, 228, 243, 253, 256, 268-70,
274-7, 287-8, 289, 290, 310, 334,
336, 339, 340, 342, 349, 357, 358,
366, 367, 373, 377, 38o, 381-3, 389
Parliament: 216, 263-4, 270, 275-7,
379
Paul, Saint: 312
Peisistratos : 262
Pericles: 325
Planning: capitalist: 149, 21 1, 213,
363-5; socialist: 174, 212, 303, 307,
323-4, 348, 358, 360-2, 366-8, 371
Plato: 17, 50, 67-8, 69, 197, 201, 236,
242, 258, 325, 373, 374
Plekhanov, G. V. : 100
Polarity: 108-9
Politics: 66, 130, 172-4, 178, 182, 224,
226, 231, 233, 257, 306, 316, 344,
353, 357, 358, 381, 388
Political parties: 172-3, 179, 251,
257, 277, 288: of the working
class: 149, 173, 174-6, 179-87,
266-71; and science : 152, 157,
174-7
Popper, Professor Sir Karl: 21, 22, 24,
34, 36, 39, 41, 64, 86, 1 14, 1 19, 152,
INDEX
395
Popper, Professor Sir Karl — contd.
20 6, 212, 220, 221, 317, 319, 344,
385, 386, 388, 389
on capitalism: 1S8, 192, 204, 207-9;
on communism , evils caused by:
179, 180-1, 184-5, 215-16, 217,
223, 275, 276, 290, 313, 343,
360-2, 367, 375-82; on demo-
cracy: 249-50, 256-7, 258-71;
on dialectics: 31-3, 60, 67-8,
88-92, 100, 108, 1 12; on
equality: 267, 281-91; on free-
dom: 292-3, 300-2, 305, 312-13,
315, 316, 321, 324; on historicism f
essentialism , holism and utopia-
nism: 129-33, 136, 137, 153,
154, 156-63, 167-9, 178, 188,
223-4, 321, 323, 327, 384; on
institutions and c/djjej: 219,232-5,
249, 258-60, 265, 266-71; on
materialism: 46-7; on Marx’s
'Capital’: 189-90, 205-10, 230;
on Open and Closed Society: 320,
325-42, 373, 383; on political
power: 178, 179, 233, 245-6,
252, 262-3, 271-4; on reinforced
dogmatism: 17, 19, 30, 73, 80,
91-4, 97, 125; on scientific
method: 18-21, 29, 77, 79-80,
84, 111-12, 139-42, 165; on
social engineering: 222-8, 311,
364, 384; on social science:
165-71, 222; on the state: 248,
294 - 9 , 305
Possibility: 156, 172, 176, 177, 178,
224, 231, 316, 349, 357
Power :
control of: 178, 179, 190, 228, 229,
256-7, 258-61, 272-7, 281, 282,
288, 290-1, 295-6, 298-9, 305,
306, 309, 310-n, 335, 345, 375,
381-3, 388, 389; economic: 173,
186, 256, 271-4, 296; political:
156, 173, 175, 178-9, 183, 186,
188, 192, 207, 217, 230, 245-7,
250-7, 271-4, 296, 310, 327,
342, 344,367,377,381
Practice: 39, 48, 51-9, 84-5, 140
Practice — contd.
information of: 39, 54-8, 77, 88, 98,
112, 359
Prices: 193, 196-7, 201
Probability: 36, 41, 143-4, 167
Production, social: 21, 26, 28, 30, 53,
134-6, 137-9, 144, 148, 150-1, 152,
154, 155, 158, 161, 166,169,170, 174,
176, 189-92, 193-8, 211, 212, 214,
215, 216, 217, 224, 229, 230-1, 239-4,
247, 248, 291, 293, 302, 306-9,
316-17, 321-2, 324, 332, 335, 338,
339-42, 344-59, 362-4, 368
Profit: 21, 191, 198, 199-200, 209, 213,
227, 289, 290, 300, 304, 347, 353,
358, 37i, 379
Progress: 144,233, 262, 281, 282-3, 289,
335, 373, 389
Propaganda: 149, 257, 269, 274, 277,
286, 288, 298, 304, 306
Property: 21, 26, 168, 177, 191, 215,
218, 240-5, 246, 247, 248, 250, 264,
266, 271, 282, 283, 284, 286, 289,
290, 299, 301, 302, 303, 304, 306,
316, 323, 33i, 340, 342, 354, 372, 381
Psychology: 134, 165-6
Reason (Rationality, Reasonableness):
112, 185, 205, 208, 216, 224, 225,
227, 232, 233, 294, 324, 326, 327,
329, 333, 338, 339, 341, 345, 359,
360, 383-9
Responsibility: 320-1, 325, 327,
336-42, 344, 346-7, 349, 356, 381,
383
Revolution: 215-26, 244, 259
bourgeois: 218, 254, 275-6, 379;
Russian: 22, 23, 186; socialist:
209, 214, 216-22, 230-1, 244-5,
267, 273, 275, 276, 289-91, 323,
367, 377, 381, 382
Ricardo, David: 80
Richard II (English King): 337
Rights: 215, 261, 264, 267, 268, 269,
276, 281-91, 296, 297, 298, 300-4,
322, 344, 362, 369, 372, 376, 377,
378, 379-83
Russell, Bertrand Lord : 65-6, 74
THE OPEN PHILOSOPHY AND THE OPEN SOCIETY
396
Ryle, Professor Gilbert: 121, 313-14
Science (see also Social Science) :
dialectical character of: 65-7, 72,
77-81; empirical methods of: 19,
23-4, 27, 36, 37, 47, 82, 84, 85,
88, 348, 387; exact: 28-9;
fundamentals of: 22-5, 164, 165,
166; hypotheses: 22-3, 26, 28,
141, 164, 348; materialist char-
acter of: 48; as social force of
production: 347-9
Security: 289, 302-3, 304, 310, 327,
328, 345 , 353 , 373,379
Shakespeare, William: 173, 242
Slavery: 144, 168, 204, 207, 284, 322
Smith, Adam: 80
Snow, C. P., Lord: 257
Social Engineering: 21, 222-31, 232,
234, 238, 239, 245, 246, 249, 294,
344 . 353 , 357 , 360 , 364,388
Social Formations: 136, 151, 153, 190,
217, 340
Social Science :
differences from natural science:
79-81, 152, 164-71, 197;
economics: 77, 80, 364; funda-
mentals of: 2 6 , 150, 201; and
politics , 172-7
Social Services: 227-9, 254, 256, 277,
285, 286, 287, 365, 369, 371-2
Socialism (Socialist Society): 93, 94,
no, 141, 142, 143, 146, 148, 149,
150, 169, 178, 180, 184, 190, 192,
204, 212, 221, 253, 274-7, 283, 303-4,
309 , 319 , 335 , 343 , 353 , 361, 362,
366-71, 381
Scientific socialism: 132, 174-7, 229
Soviet Union (Union of Socialist
Soviet Republics): 145, 181, 183-4,
362,367,371,374,380
Spinoza, B. de: 156
Stalin, J. V.: 181, 183, 374-5
State, the: 80-1, 191, 247-8, 250, 252,
253-7, 271-4, 292, 294-5, 300, 301,
303, 306, 316, 325, 331-2, 334, 335,
366, 367, 375, 379,
Strachey, John: 260
Surplus Value: 199-200, 203, 204, 210,
212, 273, 299, 370, 371
Technology: 21, 93, 151, 206-7, 239,
240, 241, 244, 293, 306, 308, 318-19,
329 , 335 , 343 , 344 , 345-52, 353 , 361,
388
t. revolution: 213, 319, 323, 348-52,
354 , 357 , 358
Thucydides : 248
Tolstoy, Leo: 320
Tribalism: 283, 317, 325-6, 329-36,
340, 341, 343
Tyranny (Despots, Dictators, Tyrants,
Totalitarianism): 179, 181-2, 184,
185, 246, 247, 249, 251, 258, 259,
260, 261-2, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267,
269, 276, 289, 290, 292, 295, 326,
331, 334 , 336, 337 , 338, 339 , 343,
344, 36i, 373 , 375 , 376, 379 , 380
Utopia (Utopianism) : 94, 95, 132, 152,
159, 160-2, 182, 188,211,212, 223-5,
244, 249, 343 , 354 , 356 - 7,358
Violence (Bloodshed): 179, 180, 181,
184, 185, 215, 217, 218, 223, 225,
226, 230, 231, 232, 244, 249, 259,
261, 263, 264, 266, 323, 344, 375-9,
383, 389
Wages: 198, 200, 203-4, 3 22 , 369-70,
37 i
War: 142, 178, 186, 208, 213, 214, 217,
218, 225, 229, 231, 269, 299, 302,
378 , 379
Wells, H. G.: 260
Wilson, Harold: 252, 270
Wittgenstein, Ludwig: 65-6
WORKS BY MARX, ENGELS AND LENIN,
CITED IN CORNFORTH,
THE OPEN PHILOSOPHY AND THE OPEN SOCIETY ,
AVAILABLE IN INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS EDITIONS
Marx. Capital 1967. Volume 1: “The Process of Capitalist Production*';
Volume 2: “The Process of Circulation of Capitar*; Volume 3: “The
Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole”.
Critique of the Gotha Programme , 1938.
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte , 1963.
Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations , 1965.
“Preface to Critique of Political Economy”, in Marx and Engels, Selected
Works , 1 vol., 1968.
Theories of Surplus Value: Selections , Eds. G. A. Bonner and Emile Bums,
1952.
“Theses on Feuerbach”, in Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach , 1941.
Wage-Labor and Capital 1933.
Engels. Anti-Duhring , 1966.
Dialectics of Nature , 1940.
Ludwig Feuerbach , 1941.
The Origin of the Family , Private Property and the State , 1942.
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific , 1935.
Marx and Engels. The German Ideology , 1947.
Selected Correspondence , 1846-1895, 1942.
Lenin. “Karl Marx”, in Lenin, The Teachings of Karl Marx , 1964.
“ Left-Wing ” Communism , Infantile Disorder , 1940.
Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, 1927.
ILTurt Is to Done 7 1929.
T/ie Proletarian Revolution and Renegade Kautsky , 1934.
PHILOSOPHY
THE OPEN PHILOSOPHY AND THE OPEN SOCIETY
Maurice Cornforth
Subtitled “A Reply to Dr. Karl Popper’s Refutation of Marxism,”
this work is certain to draw a good deal of attention from students
of contemporary philosophy. A trenchant and well-reasoned reply
to the critics of Marx, the book pays special attention to the polemics
of Professor Popper in his famous Open Society and Its Enemies.
The central theme concerns the alleged “historicism” of Marx, and
in this connection the author deals both with abstract questions of
logic and the dialectic and with more concrete problems of democ-
racy, freedom and socialism. The great significance of this work is
that it pits a major Marxist writer, for the first time in English,
against Dr. Popper, whose views form the philosophical basis for
the widely-accepted assault on Marxism by Western social science.
(A cloth edition of this hook is available at $8.50)
Other New World Paperbacks
About Philosophy
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? by Howard Selsam
DIALECTICS OF NATURE by Frederick Engels
THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY by K. Marx and F. Engels
SOCIALISM AND THE INDIVIDUAL by John Lewis
READER IN MARXIST PHILOSOPHY,
H. Selsam and H. Martel, eds.
ANTI-DUHRING by Frederick Engels
ECONOMIC AND PHILOSOPHIC MANUSCRIPTS OF 1844
by Karl Marx, D. J. Struik, ed.
DIDEROT: Interpreter of Nature, J. Kemp, ed.
ILLUSION AND REALITY by Christopher Caudwell
CAUSE, PRINCIPLE AND UNITY by Giordano Bruno
THE LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX by J. Lewis
THE MODERN PRINCE by Antonio Gramsci
KARL MARX: THE EVOLUTION OF HIS THOUGHT
by Roger Garaudy
(nw-1)
1.35
(nw-5)
2.25
(nw-6)
1.95
(nw-14)
1.00
(nw-18)
2.65
(nw-21)
2.45
(nw-27)
1.95
(nw-37)
2.25
(nw-38)
2.45
(nw-39)
1.95
(nw-53)
1.95
(nw-78)
1.85
(nw-81)
1.95
Write for a complete catalog of New World Paperbacks
INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS
381 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10016
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11